Sareum served notice on commercial licence for cancer treatment

Tue, 31st Dec 2024 10:50

(Alliance News) - Sareum Holdings PLC on Tuesday said a biopharma company in the US has served notice to terminate a development & commercialisation licence for Sareum's SRA737 clinical-stage cancer treatment.

Shares in Sareum were down 8.6% at 24.67 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.

The Cambridge, England-based pharmaceutical company focused on developing next-generation kinase inhibitors for autoimmune disease and cancer said its co-development partner CRT Pioneer Fund had entered into the pact with the unnamed US biopharmaceutical firm in January this year.

However, CPF has now informed Sareum that the US firm last week on Thursday gave notice for the end of the licence.

SRA737 is a clinical-stage inhibitor targeting cancer cell replication and DNA damage repair mechanisms. CPF acquired worldwide commercial rights to the programme in 2013 as part of a co-development agreement with Sareum.

CPF initially licensed the asset in 2016 for phase 1 and 2 clinical development to Sierra Oncology Inc, which was bought out by GSK in 2022. Rights to SRA737 were returned to CPF in January 2023.

The notice period will run for 90 days, and Sareum will engage CPF in discussions on alternative licensees once the asset has returned to CPF on March 27, 2025.

Executive Chair Stephen Parker said: "Although clearly disappointed by this outcome, Sareum is now fully focused on its pipeline of TYK2/JAK1 inhibitors and our priority is to drive our lead programme, SDC-1801, towards phase 2 development."

By Emily Parsons, Alliance News reporter

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