Sareum Regulatory News (SAR)

17 Jan 2006 07:00

Sareum Holdings PLC17 January 2006 For Immediate Release Organon and Sareum Announce Research Collaboration in Autoimmune Disease January 17, 2006, Oss, The Netherlands, and Cambridge, UK - Organon, the humanhealth care business unit of Akzo Nobel and Sareum Holdings plc, the specialiststructure-based drug discovery and services business, today announced acollaborative research agreement. The aim of this collaboration, in which Sareum will potentially dedicate amulti-disciplinary research team for over one year, is to generate lead chemicalseries for development by Organon into novel therapies for autoimmune diseasessuch as rheumatoid arthritis. Sareum will endeavor to determine the three-dimensional structures of two of theOrganon autoimmune disease protein targets and then deploy its innovativeTemplate Screening method to identify novel compounds suitable for optimisationinto lead drug candidates, using its automated medicinal chemistry platform. In return, Sareum will receive research fees and success milestone payments.Financial details were not disclosed. This is the second announcement relating to the trading update issued by Sareumon 5th January 2006 where Sareum stated that it had entered into severalcollaborations in late December, one of which is with Organon. Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,said: "We are delighted that Organon has chosen Sareum as their partner in druglead identification and optimisation. This is the largest collaboration we havesigned to date, and brings together our expertise in protein structuredetermination, Template Screening and automated chemistry. We look forward tosuccessfully identifying novel drug leads for this important therapeutic area." Dr David Nicholson, Executive Vice President Global Research, OrganonInternational Inc. added: "This collaboration with Sareum fits very well withour ambitions of expanding the breadth and depth of our research programs.Access to new technologies and the focus on new therapeutic areas such asimmunology are important building blocks to accomplish these ambitions. Webelieve that expanded research activities through partnerships are critical tofueling our future pipeline." For further information: Sareum Holdings plc +44 1223 497 700Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer Organon +31 412 66 54 40Monique Mols, Director Media Relations monique.mols@organon.com Buchanan Communications +44 207 466 5000Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson Notes for editors:About Sareum Holdings plcSareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR) is a specialist structure based drug discoveryand services business headquartered in Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed inAugust 2003 to discover new drugs for the treatment of cancer and to provide arange of drug discovery services to the pharmaceutical industry. Sareum's uniqueapproach aims to halve the time it takes to discover new drug candidates. Sareum provides its specialist drug discovery capabilities to partners in thepharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The Company aims to successfullydeliver: Programmes for complete gene-to-candidate structure-based discovery;projects to accelerate or improve the productivity of specific activities; anddrug candidates for licensing at the Phase I or Phase II clinical trials stage.For further information, please visit www.sareum.co.uk About OrganonOrganon - with shared head offices in Roseland, NJ, USA and Oss, The Netherlands- creates, manufactures and markets prescription medicines that improve thehealth and quality of human life. Through a combination of independent growthand business partnerships, Organon strives to remain or become one of theleading pharmaceutical companies in each of its core therapeutic fields:gynecology, fertility, neuroscience and anesthesia. Organon products are sold inover 100 countries, of which more than 60 have an Organon subsidiary. Organon isthe human health care business unit of Akzo Nobel. For further information, please visit www.organon.com Safe Harbor Statement*This report contains statements which address such key issues as Organon'sgrowth strategy, future financial results, market positions, productdevelopment, pharmaceutical products in the pipeline, and product approvals.Such statements, including but not limited to the "Outlook," should be carefullyconsidered, and it should be understood that many factors could cause forecastedand actual results to differ from these statements. These factors include, butare not limited to price fluctuations, currency fluctuations, developments inraw material and personnel costs, pensions, physical and environmental risks,legal issues, and legislative, fiscal, and other regulatory measures. Thesefactors also include changes in regulations or interpretations related totheimplementation and reporting under IFRS, decisions to apply a different optionof presentation permitted by IFRS, and various other factors related to theimplementation of IFRS, including the implementation of IAS 32 and 39 forfinancial instruments. Stated competitive positions are based on managementestimates supported by information provided by specialized external agencies. For a more complete discussion of the risk factors affecting our business pleasesee the Akzo Nobel Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the United StatesSecurities and Exchange Commission, a copy of which can be found on theCompany's website www.akzonobel.com. * Pursuant to the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange