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LONDON (Alliance News) - Cancer drug discovery firm Sareum Holdings PLC said Monday its interim loss widened as costs rose, but it made progress with its key developmental programmes.
For the six months ended December, pretax loss widened to GBP907,000 from GBP830,000 the year prior. Sareum generated no revenue in either years.
Profit performance was driven by a rise in operating expenses on the year before.
"We are very pleased with the progress that Sierra has made advancing its clinical programmes with SRA737 in recent months and we look forward to seeing preliminary data from these trials, expected in the first half of 2019," Sareum Chief Executive Officer Tim Mitchell said.
Sareum licences its ovarian and other advanced cancer treatment SRA737 to Nasdaq-listed Sierra Oncology Inc. The September 2016 licensing deal could entitle Sareum for up to USD88 million in milestone payments as well as sales royalties from SRA737 over coming years.
"We are also encouraged by the preclinical work that Sierra and co-workers are conducting to support Chk1 inhibition by SRA737 as an attractive mechanism in combination with other leading cancer drug classes, including immuno-oncology drugs and PARP inhibitors," Mitchell added.
Sareum does not pay a dividend.
"With regard to our proprietary programmes, the selection of SDC-1801 and SDC-1802 as preclinical candidates were important achievements and both are now advancing through preclinical programmes with a view to entering clinical trials in 2020," Mitchell continued.
SDC-1801 is a treatment for autoimmune diseases and SDC-1802 is a treatment for cancers.
"We believe that these compounds have excellent qualities and target a mechanism that is gaining credibility and generating growing interest in the pharmaceutical industry," Mitchell added. "Advancing these two programmes as quickly and as rigorously as possible is the focus of all our current resources and we are convinced that they offer the potential to generate significant value for shareholders."
Shares in Sareum were 0.7% higher at 0.78 pence on Monday.
