Sareum Regulatory News (SAR)

13 Dec 2005 07:02

Sareum Holdings PLC13 December 2005 For immediate release 13 December 2005 SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC ("Sareum" or the "Company") Collaboration with Karus Therapeutics Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the structure-based drug discovery and servicesbusiness, is pleased to announce it has entered into a collaborative agreementwith Karus Therapeutics ("Karus"), a company developing novel drugs to treatcancer and heart disease. Under the terms of the agreement, which is on a fee-for-service basis, Sareumwill provide computational chemistry expertise to support Karus' therapeuticdiscovery programmes based on inhibitors of histone deacetylase (HDAC).Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Commenting on the announcement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr TimMitchell, said: "We are delighted that we have been chosen by Karus to providethese drug discovery services and we look forward to making a valuablecontribution to their development programmes." Commenting on the announcement, Karus' Founder Director, Dr A Ganesan said: "Weare excited at the opportunity to work with Sareum. In a short period of timethey have established a reputation as a high-quality provider of research toolsfor drug discovery. We believe their expertise and resources will have asignificant impact upon our programme." For further information: Sareum Holdings 01223 497700Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer Karus Therapeutics 023 8059 3897A Ganesan, Director Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson Notes for editors: 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 and inflammation and to provide a range of drugdiscovery services to the pharmaceutical industry. Sareum's unique approach aimsto halve the time it takes to discover new drug candidates. Structure-based drug discovery involves the determination of a disease causingprotein's three-dimensional structure. Once the structure is known, novelchemical entities are designed to 'lock-in' to the protein with the aim ofreversing or arresting a disease's progression. Sareum's approach to structure based drug discovery is to produce multiplerecombinant proteins primarily through a baculovirus expression system;determine their structure using x-ray crystallography; and then use theCompany's computational chemistry expertise to create virtual, focused librariesof new chemical entities designed to interact with the target protein. Sareumthen uses its high-throughput medicinal chemistry platform to rapidly synthesisethese molecules and develop the most promising into potential drug candidates. Sareum offers its accelerated drug discovery capabilities on a fee basis to thepharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and has recently signedcollaborative agreements with Inpharmatica Ltd. and Millennium Pharmaceuticals,Inc. Sareum also intends to license out any internally generated drugcandidates at the Phase I or Phase II clinical trials stage. Sareum joined the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange inOctober 2004 and trades under the symbol SAR. For further information, pleasevisit www.sareum.co.uk About Karus Therapeutics Karus Therapuetics is a new spin-out company from the University of Southampton,and is aiming to make the treatment of cancer and heart disease more patientfriendly. Chemist Dr A. Ganesan from the School of Chemistry, cancer scientist Dr GrahamPackham and heart biologist Dr Paul Townsend from the School of Medicine havecome together to create Karus Therapeutics, a company that plans to developnovel drugs known as histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors to treat cancer andheart disease. There has been intense interest in industry in HDAC inhibitors, which can slowabnormal cell growth, cause controlled cell death and/or correct abnormal celldifferentiation in tumours. The next generation products to be developed byKarus are expected to offer patients a potent and less toxic treatment thantheir predecessors. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange