Sareum shares drop on product licence termination

(Sharecast News) - Autoimmune disease and cancer treatment developer Sareum has revealed that the commercial licence of its jointly developed SRA737 product has been terminated by a biopharma company in the US. SRA737, a clinical-stage oral, selective Checkpoint kinase 1 inhibitor that targets cancer cell replication and DNA damage repair mechanisms, has had a development and commercialisation license with a private biopharma company since January.

However, Sareum's co-development partner, the CRT Pioneer Fund, receive notice of termination of the licence on 26 Dcecember, the company said on Tuesday, causing its share price to drop sharply.

"The notice period runs for 90 days and Sareum will meet the team from CPF to discuss what steps, if any, are appropriate to seek an alternative licensee once the asset has returned to CPF on 27th March 2025," the company announced in a statement.

Executive chairman Stephen Parker said he was "clearly disappointed by this outcome", but added: "Sareum is now fully focused on its pipeline of TYK2/JAK1 inhibitors and our priority is to drive our lead programme, SDC-1801, towards Phase 2 development."

The stock was down 7.4% at 25p by 0840 GMT.