Sareum Holdings upbeat ahead of cancer research presentation

Specialist small molecule drug development company Sareum Holdings announced on Friday that it will present new preclinical data from its ‘SDC-1802 TYK2/JAK1’ inhibitor cancer research programme at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) National Cancer Institute (NCI) European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) international conference, in late October in Boston, Massachusetts.

The AIM-traded firm said that on 29 October, Sareum's chief executive officer Dr Tim Mitchell will present a poster that describes how SAR-20351, a novel selective TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor discovered by Sareum, significantly reduces tumour growth in disease models of many cancers, including those of the pancreas, colon, skin and kidney, as well as B-cell lymphoma.

SAR-20351 was formally selected as preclinical development candidate SDC-1802 in September last year.

The board said the positive results were seen when SAR-20351/SDC-1802 was dosed orally, as a monotherapy, or in combination with chemotherapy.

The studies indicated that inhibition of the TYK2/JAK1 pathway was a novel mechanism, that promoted an anti-tumour effect by activating the local immune system to attack cancer cells.

Those findings provided support for TYK2/JAK1 inhibition as a potential new immunotherapy approach, the board explained, and for the further development of SDC-1802 as a novel cancer therapeutic.

“We are pleased that our research has shown that our TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor, SDC-1802, induces a significant reduction of tumour growth in preclinical models of many cancer types,” said Tim Mitchell.

“This activity is a result of a novel immunotherapeutic mechanism of action displayed by the compound and is important as immunotherapy is rapidly becoming a major new method of cancer treatment.”

Dr Mitchell said the company’s data suggested that its TYK2/JAK1 inhibitors also offered the potential advantage of oral delivery, which contrasted with currently-marketed cancer immunotherapies, which could only be dosed by injection.

“These encouraging results further support our SDC-1802 TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor cancer programme and we are delighted to be presenting them at this important cancer conference, at which many representatives of leading pharma and biotech companies will be present.”