Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Compugen's Second Quarter 2017 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen- only mode. An audio webcast of this call is available in the Investor section of Compugen's Web site, www.cgen.com. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce Elana Holzman, Compugen's Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I would like to read the following regarding forward-looking statements. During the course of this conference call, the Company may make projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or future business outlook, anticipated progress on Compugen's pipeline program as well as commercialization efforts. We wish to caution you that such statements reflect only the company's current expectations and that actual events or results may differ materially. You are kindly referred to the risk factors and cautionary language contained in the documents that the company filed with the SEC, including the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed February 16, 2017. The company undertakes no obligation to update any projections or forward-looking statements in the future. I will now turn the call over to Anat.

Thank you, Elana, and welcome to Compugen. I would also like to welcome all the participants on today's call. Joining me from Compugen today are John Hunter, our Vice President, Antibody R&D and Head of our San Francisco Guide; and Ari Krashin, our CFO and COO. Unfortunately, Martin Gerstel, our Chairman, who usually participates in this quarterly calls is currently on vacation, and therefore would not be joining us today. Before moving to a corporate update, I would like to say a few words about Paul Sekhri deployment as our new Chairman. As most of you are probably aware in a separate press release issued today, we announced that Paul will be replacing Martin Gerstel effective October 2. Martin has been with the company for two decades and has made invaluable contribution as we evolve from a discovery only company to having a promising cancer new therapy pipeline of first-in-class drug opportunity. As Martin stated in February, while Compugen is advancing toward first-in-man clinical trial and it's facing new opportunities and challenges it would be appropriate for Compugen to have the new Chair person on board to guide the next chapter of our corporate growth. Paul brings to Compugen over 30 years of extensive and diverse experience in life sciences industry, in drug development, business development and commercial strategy having been part of both the Pharma and biotech companies and with that experience in both of public and private companies. I'm thrilled that he has accepted our offer and I look forward to working with him along the rest of our board. I'm confident that Compugen will greatly benefit from his leadership and guidance. In addition, I wish to thank Martin for his invaluable contributions to Compugen's development for two decades and we all look forward for his continued support.…

Thank you, Anat. As Anat noted, I will be directing my remarks today towards the early clinical development in positioning of COM701. Before I begin, I would like to quickly summarize the preclinical data that we recently presented at ASCO, as it guided our thinking on the design of the Phase I clinical trial. So on Slide 1, you can see an overview of COM701 program. And as a reminder, high affinity antibody, the target PVRIG a novel immune checkpoint discovered by Compugen, with its computation predictive discovery platform. We've now shown in a number of different preclinical studies, the COM701 is synergist with those digit and PD-1 pathway blockade and we see this as a benefit as a potential cancer treatment in different solid tumor indications. And we are looking at COM701 as having first in class opportunities both as a monotherapy and in combination with both TIGIT and PD-1 pathway inhibitors. We are currently on track to filing an IND in Q1 of 2018. Moving to the next Slide, in vitro studies we have shown while COM701 has monotherapy activity in terms of enhancing T-cell activation. We get synergistic effects when we combine COM701 with TIGIT inhibitor antibody. We've also seeing this effects with PD-1 combination as well versus in vitro and in-vivo and I will show you the in-vivo data shortly. But as you can see, we get similar effects with COM701 as we see with PD-1 and this is further enhanced when we combined, the two for a blockade of pathways. Additionally in some pathway systems, we've seen benefits of triples combination when we combine COM701 with TIGIT blockade plus PD-1 blockade suggesting that clinically there maybe opportunities for triple combination. Mechanistically, there is a rational for seeing a combination the PVRIG with TIGIT as well…

Thank you, John. The full details of our financial results can be found in the press release issued this morning. Net loss for the second quarter of 2017 was $9.2 million or $0.18 per diluted share compared to net loss of $6.6 million or $0.13 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2016. Our single largest category of expenses remains research and development expenses, which totaled $7.1 million for the second quarter of 2017 compared to $5.5 million in the second quarter of 2016. The increase in R&D cases primarily at our San Francisco site continue to reflect the increased preclinical activities, including manufacturing cost supporting the COM701 program as we move forward the IND filing, which is now planned for Q1 2018 as well as increased preclinical activities related to COM902. I would like to know that the contamination issue reported in June did not financially impact our R&D budget. As of June 30, 2017 we had approximately $46.1 million in cash and cash related accounts with no debt entering the second half of 2017 in consistent with the prior estimate total cash expenditures for the second half of 2017 are expected to be in the range of $16 million to $17 million bringing full year 2017 total gross cash expenditure to be in the range of $33 million to $34 million excluding potential cash inflows. Thank you. And we will now open the call for questions.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] First question is from Mike King of JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question. I want you to drill down a little bit more on John's comments. Well, first of all, I'm trying to do that, let me just also congratulate you on naming Paul Sekhri as Chair. He is a highly regarded biotech, executive and I think it's a great move for you guys. So, coming back to the question for John, with regard to patient selection, I'm just wondering when you begin trials with -- in combination, well I guess, it doesn't matter single agent 701 or combo with PD-1, if you will be looking for PDL-1 expression at all, and it correlates with response or if you all just be taking all commerce and perhaps stratifying for presence or absence of PDL-1?

Hi, Mike. We are planning on starting with our commerce just in parts where we can get you to those escalation studies more quickly to get drive the patient population and that's what enrollment, where we can we do plan to get that up at least from patients that may not be possible and maybe situation and when we have these biopsies we are going to look at the expression of our growth in checkpoint five years that we've been focusing on. So and that will include looking PDL-1 levels.

Sorry, so you are saying you will be looking for biomarkers beyond just PDL-1?

Yes, yes sorry I mean we of course we will be looking at PVRIG, PVRLT, TIGIT, PVR, so we are going to try to get and really broad view of the checkpoint landscape in the tumors and hopefully we will be able to tie that back into patient response.

Got it, okay and also just as far as patient selection can you talk about whether you would expect. I assume all these patients would be somewhat PD-1 or PDL-1 experienced but maybe I'm jumping on to just you know, a logical conclusion but perhaps talk about that aspect of it and whether you are trying to amplify a response within a non-response to first line PD-1 inhibition, or are you trying to revive response to PD-1 inhibition?

Yes, it's actually going to be a mix of patients that they have mentioned. We are not pre-selecting based on prior treatment because I think the likelihood of patients having seen PD-1 pathway inhibitors is going to depend on indication. However, ultimately our goal is to see if we can with COM701 yet responses in patients which didn't response to PD-1 inhibitors or in combination with PD-1 kind of extend responses that may have been seen with PD-1 along. So we are really quite open at this point and we are trying to cover as many different scenarios as possible.

Okay. And then, finally on PVRIG, do we have any understanding about correlation with tumor mutation burden or MSI status.

Yes, we haven't publicly release the information on that but we are looking into that. Okay, so we will look forward to some future publication on that one I suppose.

Great. Thanks so much.

Next question is from Brett Reece of Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. One of the things that has given my client confidence you know, to stay with Compugen all these years you know, has been the impressive resume's of the people on the scientific board and the free resume's of the strategic advisors who have hit their start to Compugen. We reason that these folks with their backgrounds are better equipped and we are to understand the signs and potential of Compugen. Since this is one of the pillars of our continued confidence in Compugen, could you talk a little bit about what the skin in the game of these folks are going forward in Compugen and I really like to hear it on the strategic advisors Sigal, Holzman, and [indiscernible].

Yes, sure. And I would just say that in general these advisors and the key leaders that are engaged with the company, of course the reason that they are engaged with the company is their ability to assess the potential of what Compugen was generating along the year, the discovery capabilities and the pipeline of the company and now of course as we announced today also the Chairman, in general the advisors relate specifically to the advisors that are more on the business front, [indiscernible] and Steve Holtzman, first I must say this was fortunate that these advisors are engaged with the company, they're very helpful for the company, they are engaged on all fronts, the strategy, the pipeline, the business and they're working very closely with us.

Right, but is it these folks, is it just there reputational risk that they're putting on the line, is it the opportunity cost of their time because these are very accomplished people like doing other things, do they have a material economic risk or incentive to stay with Compugen and then these strategic advisors, how much time of their working day do they spend advancing the interest of Compugen?

I think that saying just reputation is some kind of under estimation, these are people that are industry veterans working with big pharma and biotech companies, I think that the reputation is very important one and in terms of time, these advisors are accessible to us when we need them and incentive, I guess that I cannot comment it would be appropriate for me to comment about material incentive for them. And in general I would say as I stated these are strategic advisors to the company, they are involved in all three fronts, the strategy, the pipeline, the business and as I stated they are accessible to us and we're fortunate to have these advisors engaged with the company like Compugen, which I think and I think that this is the reason that they are engaged with the company has great potential.

Right, right. And just one last one and this is kind of back of the envelope question from Lay Investors with respect to the Bayer collaboration, I do hear this kind of rumbling with the resources of Bayer plus your compelling science it took basically three and half years to determine that one of the two molecules just wasn't cutting it, because you're Bayer what you do going forward, is it going to be less of a timeframe and in our determination whether the other molecule bears any commercial fruit?

I think that just in order to put things in perspective maybe two to three and half years to make a decision on the second one but it took three and half years to make a decision on the first one to take it to the clinic and it is progressive. So that let's just put things in perspective. In general every target is a new opportunity brings the own challenges, it's a completely different story between different targets and it's not related to whether our discovery capabilities can predict something as we go faster in the assessment and the development stage or slower. In general, I would say and this is important for our investors to understand while novel target bring a huge potential as first-in-class and a better shot growth intellectual property position but in this case in most of the cases, these are molecules that research stage is done by Compugen or by the external laborator that is working with us. So that was need to be taken in place but nevertheless as I stated for one program it took three and half years to make a decision, not continuing for the other program, the three and half years move forward to advancing clinical science.

All right. Thank you for taking my questions.

Next question is from [John Lassers] [ph]. Please go ahead.

Yes. I've been a stockholder for 16 years and during my time period I had friends and people are new that I talked about CGEN too and they were about 20 people are in the side in the last three or four years they dropped out consistently start and then we want I don't want to say if there is left and I don't know what the safety [indiscernible] accomplished over the day break but we've had lot of great conference calls continually struggle to say that people why should they stay in CGEN, if you had any simple -- related to that is number one question, number one are you going to talk about the new program?

Sure. First we can start with why to stay with Compugen, it's a company even paid aside the discovery capabilities that we have, the computation and what they this could offer in terms of a future potential also in other areas on top of immune-oncology, I'll stay within immune-oncology, I think that we're a company that has novel target and not only novel target that you can find 10 or 15 years of research around that are accessible to others, we have novel targets that we identified through capabilities, a true opportunity for first-in-class drugs which is the key in this market. So in the last few years, we generated a pipeline based on this novel targets that we discovered, we have pre-clinical programs in our pipeline we have four programs at the pre-clinical stage moving from computer predictions to pre-clinical stage and we're moving onto to this clinic. We've generated a pipeline that starts to be sustainable in this respect and it's sustainable I mean getting to the clinic and we're hopeful that the additional programs that we have in the pipeline where we did not disclose yet will also forward to the stage where we can disclose more information about them. But the potential is there for first-in-class - for first-in-class drugs of this company.

Yes, thank you. On the Moonshot program?

Yes, sorry yes, so with respect to the Moonshot program and there is not much more that I can say on top of what I was stating in the comments, in the prepared comments but I would just say that we're very proud be a selected by this program to get a grant for our patent. Obviously there was a competition as we, as we understand and did something that's state about today innovation that our molecule offers going back to the first section of your answer. I think the digital soft pointing to the amount of innovation this Compugen generated in its pipeline.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

The next question is from Brian Coleman of Hawk Hill Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Thanks. My question is about PVRIG, PD-1 combination potential. We never limits of PD-1 with roughly 70% to 80% of patients being non-responders and John said that there has been quite a bit of a synergy when the PD-1 and anti-PVRIG in combination and I'm wondering if there is a way that you can quantify what that synergistic population has been in your pre-clinical data.

Hi, Brian. So, to-date a lot of the work that we have been doing tried to understand that has been in different soft systems and we think at least in part it relates to expression of the different logins and different systems so, for example if you have almost, PDL-1 expression and you had COM701 separated PD-1 blockade. You really don't see much of the effect where as we see more of an effect when we have both logins PVRL2 and PDL-1 expressed at higher level than the target sold because there are number of other Checkpoints and end of the sort of again trying to get it better understanding whether other Checkpoint logins or expressed in other systems. So, if something that will working out but we do think at least in part that relates to what Checkpoint are expressed of what level that were doing expressed.

Okay. And then my second question is on kind of under business development side, early on over the past of couple of years there is kind of an trade-off discussed about Novel targets and Novel therapies on one hander. They're more risky on but on the other hand economics of moving a Novel drug candidate through trials and into the market are much greater than being 6,7,8 PD-1 drug to hit market and yet this quarter we saw fairly significant PD-1 deal with Beigene and Celgene. And I'm wondering even the discussions we're having now as you could use that as a kind of a metric or comp for kind of the discussions you are having around COM701 and some of the Novel targets.

I say that avoid using any metrics in order for us not to put ourselves into above the sophistic metric in general the economics have, we are stated that we are in discussion and all for program areas it would be hard put metric for all of them together, and in general the economics of the this type of this are dependent on multiple variable and it reflect the stage of the development reflects the competition. The amount of asset so, I would avoid that taking any significant metrics relating to be, that's it.

All right. Thank you.

This concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I'll now turn the call to our Anat for concluding remarks.

Thank you. I'd like to thank all of our shareholders and all participants of the call and I'm looking forward to share with all of you additional progress during the rest of the year. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the Compugen Ltd second quarter 2017 Financial Results Conference Call. Thank you for participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.