Sareum Regulatory News (SAR)

Sareum Holdings plc

("Sareum" or "the Company")

AGM Statement

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist cancer drug discovery and development business, will be holding its Annual General Meeting today, at 10:00 at the offices of Citigate Dewe Rogerson, 3 London Wall Buildings, London Wall, London EC2M 5SY. At the AGM, the Chairman, Dr Stephen Parker, will make the following statement:

The Board is pleased to report on a year of significant progress for Sareum. The licensing of our lead candidate, SRA737, to Nasdaq-listed Sierra Oncology is an important validation of our business model, which is based on expertise in small molecule drug design, and early development of novel drug candidates that offer attractive licensing opportunities for potential partners. SRA737, a novel Chk1 inhibitor, was discovered as the result of a research collaboration between Sareum, the Institute of Cancer Research and Cancer Research Technology.

Our partner for SRA737, Sierra Oncology, is highly committed, well-funded and has proven experience in oncology drug development. We are delighted with the progress it is making through innovative clinical trial designs to realise the value of this exciting drug candidate. Sierra Oncology intends to provide an update on the SRA737 development programme at an R&D Day in late February 2018 and expects to present data from its studies at a medical conference in the second half of 2018. The company has also said that it is considering further clinical development opportunities for SRA737 in 2018 in combination with targeted cancer therapies to broaden its potential.

The transfer of development costs to Sierra Oncology, alongside nearly £2 million received from the licensing agreement, is enabling Sareum to allocate more resources to advance our internal programmes. Encouraging progress has been made in the TYK2 programme, and we anticipate undertaking studies required to complete the selection of clinical candidates targeting autoimmune and cancer indications in 2018. In addition, the Aurora+FLT3 programme for acute leukaemias continues to advance through preclinical development, which we expect to complete in 2018.

The Company continues to engage with potential partners with a view to securing commercial licences for its products and programmes. In addition, Sareum is exploring new research programmes from its in-house drug discovery platform, as well as external early stage opportunities that can be potentially in-licensed and progressed into the clinic.

The Company ended its fiscal year 2016/2017 with a maiden profit of £400,000 and strong cash position of £2.3 million reflecting income received from the Chk1 licensing agreement, unspent R&D funds invested in the Chk1 development programme and driven by continued, rigorous capital management.

In November, the Company successfully raised a further £700,000 in a placing. This has further strengthened the cash position, enabling increased investment to advance the TYK2 and Aurora+FLT3 programmes into preclinical and clinical studies, respectively, and providing sufficient working capital to take the Company beyond the two key data reports on SRA737 that Sierra Oncology has signalled for 2018.

The Directors consider the year 2017 to have been transformational for Sareum, and I would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support and look forward to providing further updates on progress in 2018.

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Notes for editors: 

Sareum is a specialist drug discovery and development company delivering targeted small molecule therapeutics, focusing on cancer and autoimmune disease, and generating value through licensing them to international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies at the preclinical or early clinical trials stage.

Its most advanced programme, SRA737, is a novel Checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) inhibitor licensed to NASDAQ-listed Sierra Oncology and in clinical trials targeting a range of advanced cancers. The key role of Chk1 in cancer cell replication and DNA damage repair suggests that SRA737 may have broad application as a targeted therapy in combination with other oncology and immune-oncology drugs in genetically defined patients.

Sareum is also advancing programmes to develop novel tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitors in autoimmune diseases and cancers, and Aurora+FLT3 inhibitors in haematological cancers, which are in the IND-enabling preclinical and lead optimisation stages.

The Company's drug discovery technology platform (SKIL® - Sareum Kinase Inhibitor Library) is being applied to generate drug research programmes against other kinase targets.

Sareum Holdings plc is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, trading under the ticker SAR. For further information, please visit www.sareum.co.uk

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