Cancer Drug Collaboration

Sareum Holdings PLC
31 August 2006


For immediate release                                             31 August 2006





                              SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC

                          ("Sareum" or the "Company")



       NOVEL COMPOUNDS DISCOVERED IN CANCER DRUG DISCOVERY COLLABORATION

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drug discovery
business, is pleased to announce that substantial progress has been made in its
joint cancer drug discovery collaboration with The Institute of Cancer Research
(The Institute), Europe's leading cancer research centre, and Cancer Research
Technology Limited (CRT), the oncology-focused development and commercialisation
company.  Sareum, The Institute and CRT have discovered novel compound series
which show efficacy in cancer cell models.

The collaboration, which was announced in July 2005, has discovered several
novel compound series that target a specific enzyme in a key biochemical
pathway, responsible for preventing the effectiveness of traditional cancer
therapeutics such as chemotherapy. In the collaboration the team is now working
to fully optimise a leading series of compounds to provide a validated candidate
to take forward into clinical development.  The new cancer therapeutics
developed will potentially allow effective treatment of tumours which currently
do not respond to current treatments as well as lowering the dose required of
existing therapies to reduce adverse side effects.

Sareum has used its expertise in structure-based drug discovery to identify
novel compounds using its innovative Template Screening technology.  These
compound series have been rapidly progressed utilizing Sareum's high throughput
medicinal chemistry and structure determination platforms combined with the drug
screening, specialist cancer biology and medicinal chemistry expertise at The
Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics at The Institute.

Under the terms of the agreement CRT will commercialise the drug candidates
developed by the collaboration to secure future clinical development. Payments,
milestones and royalties received by CRT will be shared with Sareum and The
Institute.

Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,
said: "The quality of the science and technology applied to this collaboration
has led to outstanding progress.  This demonstrates Sareum's ongoing commitment
to the discovery of new treatments to meet unmet medical needs in cancer.  We
are now looking forward to advancing our novel chemical series through to
clinical candidate nomination next year."

Professor Paul Workman, Director of The Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer
Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: "The addition of
Sareum's powerful technology platform to our own in-depth expertise in the
development of targeted molecular therapeutics has allowed us to move forward
very rapidly on this exciting and important target.  Development of a drug
against this target would benefit patients who are currently resistant to
current treatments."



For further information please contact:


Sareum Holdings plc                                                01223 497700

Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer

Buchanan Communications                                            020 7466 5000

Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson

The Institute of Cancer Research                                   020 7153 5359
Nadia Ramsey, Science Press Officer

Cancer Research Technology Limited                                 0207 269 3640
Nick Wells, Head of Marketing



Notes for editors:

About Sareum Holdings plc

Sareum Holdings plc is a structure-based drug discovery business headquartered
in Cambridge, UK. Sareum Limited was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugs
for the treatment of cancer and to provide a range of drug discovery services to
the pharmaceutical industry. Sareum's unique approach aims to halve the time it
takes to discover new drug candidates.

A structure-based approach to drug discovery relies on knowledge of the
three-dimensional structure of the proteins that cause disease. Once the
structure is known, potential drugs are designed to 'lock-in' to the protein
with the aim of reversing or arresting a disease's progression. Knowledge of the
structure of the potential drugs and how they 'lock-in' to the protein permits
the best potential drug to be discovered. Determining structure is a complex
task and requires leading-edge equipment and experienced staff. Sareum's
approach to structure determination is to produce multiple recombinant proteins
primarily through a baculovirus expression system and to determine their
structure using x-ray crystallography.

When the structure is determined, the Company's innovative Template Screening
platform is used to identify novel chemical starting material designed to
interact with the target protein. Sareum then uses its high-throughput medicinal
chemistry platform to rapidly optimise these molecules and develop the most
promising into potential drug candidates.

Sareum provides its specialist drug discovery capabilities to partners in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The Company aims to successfully
deliver: Programmes for complete gene-to-candidate structure-based discovery;
projects to accelerate or improve the productivity of specific activities; and
drug candidates for licensing at the Phase I or Phase II clinical trials stage.

Sareum joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2004 and
trades under the symbol SAR. For further information, please visit
www.sareum.co.uk.



About The Institute of Cancer Research

The Institute of Cancer Research is Europe's leading cancer research centre with
expert scientists working on cutting edge research. It was founded in 1909 to
carry out research into the causes of cancer and to develop new strategies for
its prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. For more information please visit
www.icr.ac.uk

The Institute works in a unique partnership with the Royal Marsden NHS
Foundation Trust, forming the largest comprehensive cancer centre in Europe. The
Institute is unrivalled in its record in cancer drug discovery and development.

The Institute is a charity that relies on voluntary income. The Institute is a
highly cost-effective major cancer research organisation with over 90p in every
£ directly supporting research.



About Cancer Research Technology Limited

Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT) is an oncology-focused development and
commercialisation company that realises cancer patient benefit from publicly-
funded research worldwide. CRT works closely with leading international cancer
scientists, their institutes and funding bodies to protect, develop and
commercialise oncology-related discoveries. CRT is wholly owned by Cancer
Research UK, the largest independent funder of cancer research in the world.
Further information about CRT can be found at www.cancertechnology.com.




                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange