H.C. Wainwright is a full-service investment bank dedicated to providing corporate finance, strategic advisory, and related services to public and private companies across various sectors and regions. We have a total of 24 publishing senior analysts and over 650 companies covered across all sectors. If you would like more information, please visit hcwco.com. From a logistics standpoint, please make sure to reference your online conference portal that provides your individual links to your meetings and all presentations. With that being said, we wish you a productive and enjoyable day. Now, I will hand it off to Anat Cohen-Dayag, the President and CEO at Compugen.
Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to start by thanking the Wainwright team for inviting us today, and to mention that we're pre-recording on August nineteenth. I'm delighted to provide an overview of the progress we're making at Compugen in addressing resistance of cancer patients to available cancer immunotherapies. Compugen is a pioneer of predictive computational discovery, and we use our computational engine in order to discover novel drug targets, to unlock their biology, and get insights with respect to cancer biology and immune response, and to develop first and best-in-class drugs to potentially transform cancer patients' lives. Our computational discovery platform is powered by AI and machine learning, and this is the engine that is driving our competitive edge and the future pipeline. And this engine already delivered multiple opportunities for Compugen to generate long-term value.
It delivered two fully owned clinical programs, COM701, a potential first-in-class anti-PVRIG antibody, and COM902, a potential best-in-class Fc reduced anti-TIGIT antibody. It also delivered validating strategic partnerships with Gilead, with Gilead for the potential first-in-class anti-IL-18 binding protein antibody, and with AstraZeneca for rilvegostomig, an anti-PD-1 TIGIT bispecific antibody, of which the TIGIT component is derived from COM902. It also delivered early stage programs, multiple early stage programs that are designed to feed our future pipeline. We have a strong balance sheet with cash balance as of June 30 of about $92 million, and this takes into consideration a $30 million milestone payment from our partner, Gilead, that we're eligible to obtain for the IND clearance that have been achieved in July 2024 for COM503, and this takes us to an expected cash runway into 2027.
This is an exciting time for Compugen. We have the fundamentals to generate long-term value for the company, its shareholders, and also for cancer patients. COM701 is our potential first-in-class anti-PVRIG antibody, and Compugen is the first and the only company that presented clinical data for targeting PVRIG. We recognize the many followers for this drug target, including GSK, and we think of it as further validation for this drug target that we discovered computationally. We were also the first to discover TIGIT, and we sent it to publication simultaneously with Roche. With the recent advancements in the field of TIGIT, I'm going to share with you some key takeaways that we think... how we think about TIGIT as a drug target, but I'll do that later.
COM902 is our potential best-in-class anti-TIGIT antibody, and we picked it as an IgG4 on purpose. We picked a naturally Fc reduced antibody with safety and efficacy in mind, and this is for two reasons. First, TIGIT is highly expressed on CD8+ T cells and NK cells. These are cells that are key for anti-tumor activities, and you don't want to deplete them. The second reason is that Fc silent antibody avoids the depletion of Tregs, and therefore may avoid immune-related adverse events. Recent data is suggesting that Fc-enabled TIGIT antibodies may not be tolerable in patients with early disease, and this is due to potential immune-related adverse events. So the value of COM902 is reinforced by the strategic collaboration that we have with AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca is developing rilvegostomig and a PD-1 TIGIT bispecific, where the TIGIT component is derived from COM902, and they recently estimated a peak year revenue target of more than $5 billion for rilvegostomig, and this is actually reflecting the potential of this asset, and also the significant potential revenue-generating opportunity for Compugen. AstraZeneca is developing rilvegostomig and advancing it broadly. As you can see here, they are advancing multiple clinical trials, phase 1, phase 2, phase 3s, multiple combinations, and across indications. In September, they are going to share two data points, one in PD-1-naive first-line non-small cell lung cancer. They are going to share the data in an oral presentation in the World Congress of Lung Cancer. The second data point is for gastric cancer. This is a poster presentation that is scheduled for ESMO.
Now, as I said, there were- there have been many developments in the TIGIT space, in the TIGIT field in recent months, and there are still more to come by year-end, and I'd like to share with you the key takeaways, our key takeaways for TIGIT as a drug target. The first one is that TIGIT is active. There were multiple phase 2 studies where demonstrating that adding TIGIT to PD-1 is showing a benefit, and it also observed in a phase 3 study interim analysis with a six-month survival benefit. The second thing is that the benefit of TIGIT is observed mostly in the PD-L1 high patient population. The third one is that the nature of the TIGIT antibody matters, whether it is Fc enabled or disabled.
As I mentioned, there is some data suggesting that TIGIT antibody that has an Fc that is enabled, an active Fc, may not be tolerable in patients with early stage of disease, and this is due to immune-related adverse events. The fourth takeaway is that a third component may be needed in order or is needed in order to maximize the clinical benefit. Our data suggests that PVRIG is adding benefit when it is added to PD-1 and TIGIT, and this and we believe that this data is coming with a favorable safety profile and durable responses. This takes us to the next point, and the next point is that we believe that the success of the TIGIT studies is going to be set by the clinical strategy.
The chosen patient population and the chosen combination is important, as well as the nature of the chosen TIGIT antibody, Fc enabled or disabled, and we believe that we are differentiated, Compugen is differentiated on this front. We are targeting the DNAM axis with triple combination blocking PVRIG, TIGIT, and PD-1, and we believe that that's the path forward in targeting the DNAM axis. We picked this strategy of the triplet combination in a very differentiated way, and I'll explain. Unlike TIGIT, PVRIG may function across the PD-L1 expression levels, and therefore, it may extend the response to tumor types in patient populations that are not responsive to PD-1, so in our strategy, we decided to focus on those patient populations and the tumor types that are not responsive to PD-1. This strategy really helps us to have a direct proof that PVR...
Based on our data, that PVRIG and COM701 are actually driving the effect, and the effect cannot be attributed to PD-1, because these patient populations are not responding to PD-1. This allowed us to move forward with small studies, single-arm studies, to prove a direct effect of COM701 within a triplet combination. But we recognize that treating these very hard-to-treat tumor populations, we may observe small signals. Obviously, one should know that PVRIG is also relevant in the PD-L1 high expressors in tumor types and settings that are responding to PD-1. So let's look at our ovarian cancer data. This is the data in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients, very hard-to-treat tumor types, a patient population that exhausted all treatment options, and our data is encouraging.
The data we presented up until today is showing a 20% overall response rate, durable responses, with some patients responding for more than 16 months, and this is comparing favorably with the with the standard of care, and in this case, the standard of care is chemotherapy. These patients that are not eligible for ADCs or failed on ADCs, the only thing that is left for them is chemotherapy. And for chemotherapy, the median progression-free survival is about 3 to 4 months. And unlike chemotherapy, our triplet combination has a favorable safety profile. And we were also showing data on COM701 as monotherapy. In a patient with ovarian cancer, where the tumor microenvironment was immune desert, we observed monotherapy activity of a partial response for a patient, for these patients for more than 18 months.
Now, going beyond targeting the DNAM axis, we're very excited by our differentiated approach to harness cytokine biology to treat cancer with our lead preclinical asset, COM503, that just received IND clearance from the FDA. Receiving this IND clearance made us eligible for a milestone payment of $30 million from our partner, Gilead, and this strengthens our balance sheet with an expected cash runway into 2027. So what's next for Compugen? In Q4, we're going to share data from our triplet study, targeting PVRIG, TIGIT, and PD-1 in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. With the changing landscape in ADC, with AD, and with ADCs approvals for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, we believe that our benchmark is chemotherapy, because what has left for this, for these patients that are not responsive to ADCs, failed ADCs, or are not eligible to ADCs, it's really chemotherapy.
So this is our benchmark. Our goal is to be able to repeat the data that we've already observed in the prior cohort that I shared with you and prove that COM701 is active. At the time that we'll share our data in Q4, we will also share our next plans. For COM503, we're well on track for planning the phase I study and on track to initiate the phase I study in Q4. And with respect to rilvegostomig, as I was saying, AstraZeneca is advancing this program in multiple studies, and there are two data points that they are going to share in September in non-small cell lung cancer, in the World Congress of Lung Cancer, and in gastric cancer at ESMO.
With this, thank you for listening for my talk, and if you have any questions, please contact Yvonne, the head of our investor relations. Thank you.
Great. Thank you, Anat, and to Compugen for leading a very productive and informative presentation. The H.C. Wainwright team is grateful for your presence at the Annual Global Investment Conference and for your efforts in preparing for your session.