Change of Director

RNS Number : 3847Y

Sareum Holdings PLC

17 May 2016

 

SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC

("Sareum" or "the Company")

Change of Director

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM:SAR), the specialist cancer drug discovery and development company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Stephen Parker as Non-executive Chairman of the Company. Dr Stephen Parker succeeds Dr Paul Harper with immediate effect.

Dr Stephen Barry Parker, aged 57, is Chairman of Silence Therapeutics PLC.  His career in the healthcare and pharma sector spans over 30 years, including six years in the City in advisory roles. He has sector corporate finance experience having been an investment banker focusing on pharma and biotechnology with Barings, Warburg and Apax Partners and has previously held roles as a partner at Celtic Pharma and Chief Financial Officer of Oxford GlycoSciences.

Sareum's CEO, Dr Tim Mitchell, commented: "We would like to thank Paul for his invaluable contribution to the company over the last 12 years.  During his time with us Paul helped to define the direction and strategy of the Company which has allowed us build considerable value into our development programmes through their progression towards, and into, early clinical development.

"We welcome Stephen to the board, who brings with him a wealth of financial and industry experience which will be crucial to the business as we look towards the next stages of our transformation into a clinical-stage development company."

Disclosures:

Current directorships
Silence Therapeutics PLC
Albucasis Limited
sp2 Consulting Limited
Previous directorships (within the last five years)
Celtic Pharma Development UK plc
Xenova Group Limited
Xenova Limited
Celtic Pharma Management Services Europe Limited
Celtic Pharma Development Services Europe Limited
Phogen Limited
Oncocene Limited
Xenova Biomedix Limited
Xenova KS Limited
Xenova Research Limited
Xenova OX-400 Limited
Cantab Biopharmaceuticals Limited
Dialog Devices Limited
Novacta Biosystems Limited
Celtic Pharma Holdings Advisors LLP
PBB Devices Limited
Celtic Pharma Holdings Advisors 3 LLP
Pro Bono Bio Group plc
Pro Bono Bio Entrepreneur Limited

Dr Stephen Parker resigned from the management team of the Celtic Pharma group on 25 November 2013.  Dr Parker however remains a director of Celtic Pharma Development UK plc, Xenova Group Limited and Xenova Limited, each of which are subsidiaries of Celtic Pharma GP Limited and were placed into voluntary liquidation on 25 April 2014.

No further disclosures are required under Rule 17 and Schedule 2(g) of the AIM Rules.

For further information:

Sareum Holdings plc
Tim Mitchell	01223 497 700
WH Ireland Limited (Nominated Adviser and Co-Broker)
Chris Fielding / Nick Prowting	020 7220 1666
Hybridan LLP (Co-Broker)
Claire Noyce / William Lynne	020 3764 2341/2342
The Communications Portfolio (Media enquiries)
Ariane Comstive [e-mail]	07785 922 354

Notes for editors:

Sareum is a drug discovery and development company delivering targeted small molecule therapeutics, focusing on cancer and autoimmune disease, for licensing to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies at the preclinical or early clinical trials stage.

Sareum operates an outsourced research model, working with collaborators (SRI International, the CRT Pioneer Fund and Hebei Medical University Biomedical Engineering Center) and a world-wide network of research providers. Its research pipeline includes a programme awaiting final approval to start clinical trials and another undergoing pre-clinical IND-enabling studies.

SKIL® (Sareum Kinase Inhibitor Library) is Sareum's drug discovery technology platform that has so far produced the Company's Aurora+FLT3, Aurora+ALK, VEGFR-3, FLT3 & TYK2 kinase cancer and autoimmune disease research programmes. SKIL® can also generate drug research programmes against other kinase targets.

Sareum Holdings plc is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol SAR. For further information, please visit www.sareum.co.uk

Checkpoint Kinase 1 (CHK1) and CCT245737: Most chemotherapies work by damaging the DNA of rapidly dividing cells. In response, cancer cells can activate an enzyme, known as CHK1, which delays cell division and gives cancer cells an opportunity to repair their damaged DNA. This enables the cancer cells to survive the DNA damage and become resistant to the cell-killing effects of chemotherapeutic agents.

Studies have shown that oral dosing of CCT245737, the CHK1 clinical development candidate being funded by the Sareum / CRT Pioneer Fund co-development partnership, and other lead series compounds can boost the activity of relevant chemotherapies in in vivo models of lung, pancreatic and colon cancers. Furthermore, strong efficacy has been demonstrated by these inhibitors when dosed as a single anti-cancer agent in several in vivo models, including those of AML (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) lymphoma and paediatric neuroblastoma.

A detailed description of CCT245737 was published in the high-impact journal, Oncotarget, in July 2015.

 

END

 

 

BOADMGMKDVLGVZM