Sareum's loss widens as development costs expand

For the six-month period ended 31 December, the cancer drug discovery and development business reported a loss before tax of £0.9m, a 9% increase in red ink compared to the same period the year before, after operating expenses increased by 10% to £0.9m.

The AIM traded company remains in the development stage and has yet to begin generating revenue, holding cash and cash equivalents of £1.5m at the period end, down from £2.2m at the same point of the year before.

The company currently licences its ovarian and other advanced cancer treatment SRA737 to Nasdaq-listed Sierra Oncology as part of a licensing deal that could entitle it to up to $88m in milestone payments as well as sales royalties for the treatment over coming years.

Tim Mitchell, chief executive of Sareum, said: "We are very pleased with the progress that Sierra has made advancing its clinical programmes with SRA737 in recent months and we look forward to seeing preliminary data from these trials, expected in the first half of 2019. We are also encouraged by the preclinical work that Sierra and co-workers are conducting to support Chk1 inhibition by SRA737 as an attractive mechanism in combination with other leading cancer drug classes."

The period also saw Sareum initiate formal preclinical development with two distinct molecules, SDC-1801 and SDC-1802, which both display "compelling activity in relevant disease models, the potential for once-daily oral dosing and a good early safety profile", according to a company statement.

"We believe that these compounds have excellent qualities and target a mechanism that is gaining credibility and generating growing interest in the pharmaceutical industry. Advancing these two programmes as quickly and as rigorously as possible is the focus of all our current resources and we are convinced that they offer the potential to generate significant value for shareholders," said Mitchell.

Sareum's shares were down 6.06% at 0.73p at 1208 GMT.