Placing to progress TYK2/JAK1 programmes

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

Sareum Holdings plc

("Sareum" or "the Company")

Placing to raise £513,200 to progress proprietary TYK2/JAK1 programmes
in preclinical development

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist cancer drug discovery and development business, announces that it has raised £513,200, before expenses, through a placement by Hybridan LLP of 128,300,000 new ordinary shares of 0.025p each in the capital of the Company (the "Placing Shares") at 0.4p 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.

Mr Clive Birch, Non-executive Director at Sareum, has subscribed for 1,250,000 of these Placing Shares.

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 2 July 2018.

Following the admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM, the Company will have a total of 3,004,243,219 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.

The Company will imminently issue a further announcement concerning an opportunity for retail investors to participate on the same terms.

Dr Tim Mitchell, CEO of Sareum Holdings plc, said: "The potential for our two preclinical TYK2/JAK1 inhibitors in autoimmune diseases and cancer is gaining increasing clinical validation and we are convinced that SDC-1801 and SDC-1802 represent strong and well-differentiated candidates to address diseases within these areas. We are focused on advancing these exciting preclinical candidates towards human trials as quickly as possible, aiming for first-in-man studies to begin in 2020."

For further information, please contact: 

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 multiple 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.

SRA737 was discovered and initially developed by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK in collaboration with Sareum, and with funding from Cancer Research UK. SRA737 was licensed to Sierra Oncology for up to $328.5 million plus royalties by Sareum's co-investment partner, CRT Pioneer Fund. Sareum is eligible to receive up to $88 million in milestone payments, plus sales royalties as SRA737 advances.

Notable highlights from the Phase 1/2 preliminary results reported by Sierra at ASCO (June 2019) were:

SRA737 + low dose gemcitabine (LDG) combination

·    Striking anti-tumour activity was observed in patients with anogenital cancer, including examples where metastatic disease was cleared from liver and lung.

·    Tumour size decreased by more than a third in 30% of the evaluable anogenital cancer patients and a further 30% had durable stable disease.

·    Sierra outlined a potential route to market for SRA737+LDG in anogenital cancer via a registration-intent Phase 2 trial.

SAR737 monotherapy

High-grade serous ovarian cancers (HGSOC) appeared to be the most sensitive tumour to SRA737, with the disease being controlled (stable disease) in 54% of evaluable 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 (SDC-1801) and cancers (SDC-1802). 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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