Genentech Agreement

Sareum Holdings PLC 12 December 2007 For immediate release 12 December 2007 SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC ("Sareum" or the "Company") Extension of Genentech Agreement Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drug discovery business, is pleased to announce that it has extended its agreement with Genentech, Inc. for a further 6 months following its initial agreement announced in November 2006. Under the terms of this agreement, Sareum will continue to apply its skills in high throughput protein expression, purification and structure determination on drug discovery targets designated by Genentech. In return, Sareum will receive research fees and may receive specific success-dependent milestone payments. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell, said: "Successfully delivering on relationships with leading companies such as Genentech is a key component of our business strategy and an outstanding validation of Sareum's technology and expertise. We are very pleased to have supported Genentech's programs over the last 12 months, and look forward to continuing this important relationship." For further information: Sareum Holdings 01223 497700 Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000 Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson Grant Thornton Corporate Finance 020 7383 5100 Philip Secrett, Colin Aaronson Notes for editors: About Sareum Holdings plc Sareum Holdings plc is a structure-based drug discovery business headquartered in Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugs for the treatment of cancer. 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 their target protein assists greatly in the development of high-quality drug candidates. Determining structure is a complex task and requires leading-edge equipment and experienced staff. Sareum's approach to structure determination utilises its proprietary protein expression platform in order to produce multiple recombinant proteins that accelerate structure determination using x-ray crystallography. Once the structure is determined, the Company's innovative fragment screening platform is used to identify novel chemical templates 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 aims to successfully deliver drug candidates for licensing to larger pharmaceutical companies at the pre-clinical or early clinical trials stage. This is funded by provision of its specialist drug discovery capabilities to partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. 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 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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