Sareum Regulatory News (SAR)

Sareum Holdings plc

("Sareum" or "the Company")

Placing to raise £850,000 to progress proprietary TYK2/JAK1 programmesinto preclinical development

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist cancer drug discovery and development business, announces that it has raised £850,000, before expenses, through a placement of 130,769,231 new ordinary shares of 0.025p each in the capital of the Company (the "Placing Shares") through a third party licensed dealer acting solely as a placing agent to this transaction at 0.65p per share.

The net proceeds of the placing will be used to progress the Company's TYK2/JAK1 drug development programmes as well as for working capital purposes.

Application has been made for the Placing Shares, which will rank pari passu with the Company's existing Ordinary Shares, to be admitted to trading on London Stock Exchange AIM ("Admission"). It is anticipated that Admission will become effective at 8.00 am on 08 November 2018.

Following the admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM, the Company will have a total of 2,875,993,219 shares in issue. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Dr Tim Mitchell, CEO of Sareum Holdings plc, said: "We are excited about the potential of the recently nominated lead candidates from our proprietary TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor programmes in autoimmune diseases and cancer. TYK2/JAK1 inhibition is a novel mode of action in these indications and one that is gaining credibility among leading companies. We believe we have strong candidates with optimised profiles in these areas and are focused on advancing these into preclinical development towards clinical trials. These new funds, added to our current cash, will enable us to advance these studies and build up the evidence required to facilitate a licensing agreement at an optimal value."

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The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014

Notes for editors: 

Sareum is a specialist drug development company delivering targeted small molecule therapeutics, to improve the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. The Company generates value through licensing its candidates to international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies at the preclinical or early clinical trials stage.

Sareum's leading clinical-stage programme, SRA737, a novel Checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) inhibitor licensed to NASDAQ-listed Sierra Oncology, is in Phase 2 clinical trials targeting ovarian and other 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 internal programmes focused on distinct dual tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) /Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) inhibitors through preclinical development as therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancers. TYK2 and JAK1 have roles in pro-inflammatory responses in autoimmune diseases (e.g. psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases and lupus) and tumour cell proliferation in certain cancers (e.g. T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and some solid tumours). The Company is targeting first human clinical trials in each indication in 2020.

The Company also has an Aurora+FLT3 inhibitor targeting haematological cancers, which is at the preclinical development stage.

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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