LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Specialist cancer drug discovery and development business Sareum Holdings announced its half-yearly results for the six months to 31 December on Monday, a period in which it made good progress with its cancer and autoimmune disease research programmes.
The AIM-traded firm said its share of income from associates, relating to the Chk1 programme, was £1.52m - improving from nil at the same time last year - delivering a share of profit of £1.3m, compared to a share of loss £0.17m in 2015, after costs.

It announced a maiden profit on ordinary activities after taxation of £0.57m, swinging from a loss of £0.49m year-on-year.

Cash at period end was £2.31m, up from £0.34m, and the company's unspent investment in the Chk1 Project was £0.26m compared to £0.84m.

On the operational front, Sareum said the Chk1 inhibitor cancer drug candidate CCT245737 was licensed to Sierra Oncology during the period, by its co-investment partner the CRT Pioneer Fund, triggering an upfront payment of $1.9m to Sareum.

It also reported a successful outcome from the TYK2 cancer feasibility study with the results supporting a case to advance the programme further - the data was presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC international cancer conference in Munich, Germany.

Further patents were granted for the Aurora+FLT3 kinase programme in Japan, Singapore, China, and Hong Kong, which the board said completed IP protection for the candidate in all major territories.

Since the period ended, the first milestone for Chk1 licence agreement was also achieved following the successful transfer of two ongoing Phase 1 clinical trials to Sierra Oncology, with Sareum to receive a $0.55m share.

"With the share of income from the upfront and the first milestone payments for Chk1, we intend to accelerate research into our three other programmes while seeking to develop or in-license new autoimmune or anti-cancer candidates," said CEO Tim Mitchell.

"We expect to report a modest profit for the full year," Dr Mitchell added.

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