Sareum Holdings PLC
12 December 2007
For immediate release 12 December 2007
SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC
("Sareum" or the "Company")
Extension of Genentech Agreement
Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drug discovery
business, is pleased to announce that it has extended its agreement with
Genentech, Inc. for a further 6 months following its initial agreement announced
in November 2006.
Under the terms of this agreement, Sareum will continue to apply its skills in
high throughput protein expression, purification and structure determination on
drug discovery targets designated by Genentech.
In return, Sareum will receive research fees and may receive specific
success-dependent milestone payments. Financial terms of the agreement were not
disclosed.
Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,
said: "Successfully delivering on relationships with leading companies such as
Genentech is a key component of our business strategy and an outstanding
validation of Sareum's technology and expertise. We are very pleased to have
supported Genentech's programs over the last 12 months, and look forward to
continuing this important relationship."
For further information:
Sareum Holdings 01223 497700
Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer
Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000
Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson
Grant Thornton Corporate Finance 020 7383 5100
Philip Secrett, Colin Aaronson
Notes for editors:
About Sareum Holdings plc
Sareum Holdings plc is a structure-based drug discovery business headquartered
in Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugs
for the treatment of cancer. Sareum's unique approach aims to halve the time it
takes to discover new drug candidates.
A structure-based approach to drug discovery relies on knowledge of the
three-dimensional structure of the proteins that cause disease. Once the
structure is known, potential drugs are designed to 'lock-in' to the protein
with the aim of reversing or arresting a disease's progression. Knowledge of the
structure of the potential drugs and how they 'lock-in' to their target protein
assists greatly in the development of high-quality drug candidates. Determining
structure is a complex task and requires leading-edge equipment and experienced
staff. Sareum's approach to structure determination utilises its proprietary
protein expression platform in order to produce multiple recombinant proteins
that accelerate structure determination using x-ray crystallography.
Once the structure is determined, the Company's innovative fragment screening
platform is used to identify novel chemical templates designed to interact with
the target protein. Sareum then uses its high-throughput medicinal chemistry
platform to rapidly optimise these molecules and develop the most promising into
potential drug candidates.
Sareum aims to successfully deliver drug candidates for licensing to larger
pharmaceutical companies at the pre-clinical or early clinical trials stage.
This is funded by provision of its specialist drug discovery capabilities to
partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
Sareum joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2004 and
trades under the symbol SAR. For further information, please visit
www.sareum.co.uk
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange