Sareum's pre-clinical development of SDC-1801 delayed by Covid-19

Pharmaceutical company Sareum said on Tuesday that Covid-19 has continued to impact the contract research organisations it was working to complete pre-clinical development of its SDC-1801 drug candidate for autoimmune disease.

While Sareum said the initial impact on development timelines was "minimal", it has since increased and was causing further delays to the final studies it needs to complete on SDC-1801 prior to filing an exploratory clinical trial application.

As a result of the delays, the AIM-listed company now expects these final toxicity and safety studies to complete in the third quarter of 2021, with a CTA for SDC-1801 to be filed in the final period, subject to no further delays.

Sareum noted that a UKRI-funded Covid-19 research project for SDC-1801 was still expected to complete on schedule, with the experimental phases finishing in June and data analysis to complete shortly thereafter.

Chief executive Dr Tim Mitchell said: "The delays in completing the preclinical data package for SDC-1801, prior to our planned filing to begin clinical studies, are an unfortunate consequence of the current pandemic environment that is affecting many organisations.

"We look forward to reporting the results from the UKRI-funded studies that are investigating the potential of SDC-1801 to reduce the excessive inflammatory response seen in severe Covid-19. Positive results, that confirm our early findings, will enable us to explore further opportunities to develop SDC-1801 in this indication, in parallel with our broader autoimmune programme."

As of 1055 BST, Sareum shares were down 5.04% at 2.52p.