Sareum Regulatory News (SAR)

15 May 2007 07:01

Sareum Holdings PLC15 May 2007 For immediate release 15 May 2007 SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC ("Sareum" or "the Company") Advancement of Internal Cancer Drug Discovery Program Sareum Holdings plc (Sareum) (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drugdiscovery business, is pleased to announce that it has developed, and filedpatent applications on, novel small molecule compounds which show promisingactivity against two significant cancer drug discovery target types. These targets are the Aurora and FLT kinases, believed to be key to theregulation of cell division and proliferation, which control different stages inthe development of a tumour. It is believed that a drug simultaneously able toinhibit the function of both targets will be more effective against cancer thanan inhibitor that acts on a single target. The associated patent filings arepart of the Company's strategy to secure the intellectual property rightsrelating to the novel compound series developed from this program and their usein the treatment of cancer. Sareum has used its expertise in fragment and structure-based drug discovery toidentify novel chemical compounds effective against these cancer drug targets.These compounds have been rapidly progressed towards drug candidates utilisingSareum's high throughput medicinal chemistry and structure determinationplatforms. Additionally, key assets, including the determination of a hithertoun-reported Aurora kinase sub-type structure, have been developed by scientistsat Sareum. This program is currently wholly owned by Sareum and forms a key part of theCompany's internal oncology portfolio, which also includes the Checkpoint Kinaseprogram announced in February 2007. Commenting on the announcement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr TimMitchell, said: "The progress of these compounds represents a further milestonein Sareum's strategy to generate value through our in-house drug discovery. Weare actively seeking licencing partners for this program to assist theadvancement of these novel chemical series through to clinical candidatenomination." Sareum Holdings plc 01223 497700 Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000 Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson Grant Thornton Corporate Finance 020 7383 5100Philip Secrett, Colin Aaronson Notes for editors: About Aurora Kinases Aurora kinases have been implicated in the onset of several human cancers. Theyare over-expressed in different tumour types including colon, breast andpancreatic cancers as well as in leukemias. Aurora kinases are involved inregulating multiple steps of mitosis (the process by which a copy of theduplicated genome is precisely segregated into two daughter cells), includingcentrosome duplication, formation of a bipolar mitotic spindle, chromosomealignment on the mitotic spindle and regulation of the fidelity-monitoringspindle checkpoint. About FLT Kinases The FLT kinases have been demonstrated to be important in many stages of tumourdevelopment. For instance, FLT-1 has been linked to tumour angiogenesis, aduplication of the FLT-3 gene is seen in many leukemia patients and FLT-4 isassociated with metastases of tumours, which are the main cause of death incancer patients. About Sareum Holdings plc Sareum Holdings plc is a structure-based drug discovery business headquarteredin Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugsfor the treatment of cancer. Sareum's unique approach aims to halve the time ittakes to discover new drug candidates. A structure-based approach to drug discovery relies on knowledge of thethree-dimensional structure of the proteins that cause disease. Once thestructure is known, potential drugs are designed to 'lock-in' to the proteinwith the aim of reversing or arresting a disease's progression. Knowledge ofthe structure of the potential drugs and how they 'lock-in' to their targetprotein assists greatly in the development of high-quality drug candidates.Determining structure is a complex task and requires leading-edge equipment andexperienced staff. Sareum's approach to structure determination utilises itsproprietary protein expression platform in order to produce multiple recombinantproteins that accelerate structure determination using x-ray crystallography. Once the structure is determined, the Company's innovative fragment screeningplatform is used to identify novel chemical templates designed to interact withthe target protein. Sareum then uses its high-throughput medicinal chemistryplatform to rapidly optimise these molecules and develop the most promising intopotential drug candidates. Sareum aims to successfully deliver drug candidates for licensing to largerpharmaceutical companies at the pre-clinical or early clinical trials stage.This is funded by provision of its specialist drug discovery capabilities topartners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Sareum joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2004 andtrades under the symbol SAR. For further information, please visitwww.sareum.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange