Successful Fundraising

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Sareum Holdings PLC

("Sareum" or the "Company")

Successful Fundraising

Sareum Holdings PLC, the specialist small molecule drug development business announced on 25 June 2019 the launch of a fundraising comprising a placing by Hybridan LLP (the "Placing") in conjunction with an offer via PrimaryBid (the "Offer") (together the "Fundraising").

The Company is pleased to announce that the PrimaryBid Offer successfully completed and closed at 9:00 p.m. on 25 June 2019.

Following the successful closing of the Offer, the Company has raised gross proceeds of £681,484 at 0.4 pence per ordinary share via the Fundraising.

The Company will therefore issue and allot a total of 170,371,000 New Ordinary Shares to satisfy the Fundraising. Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for these New Ordinary Shares, which rank pari passu with the Company's existing Ordinary Shares, to be admitted to trading on AIM. Dealings are expected to commence at 8.00 a.m. on 2 July 2019. 

Total Voting Rights

Following the issue of the New Ordinary Shares, the Company will have 3,046,364,219 ordinary shares of 0.025 pence in issue. No Ordinary Shares are held in treasury. The figure of 3,046,364,219 may be used by the Company's 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 Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure Rules and Transparency Rules.

Dr Tim Mitchell, CEO of Sareum Holdings plc, said: "We are pleased to have successfully completed this new fundraising, particularly the participation from retail investors, as well as the continued support from our existing shareholder base. The funds will be used to advance our lead internal TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor programmes towards human trials. We believe we have the potential to generate significant value with these candidates, which represent exciting prospects in an area of increasing interest in the pharmaceutical industry. We look forward to putting our strengthened financial position to work and to updating shareholders on progress as milestones are reached."

Defined terms in this announcement shall have the same meaning as in the Company announcement of 25 June 2019, unless otherwise specified.

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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