Sareum Holdings (LON: SAR) has seen its shares rally on Friday morning after they noted a potential opportunity for SRA737 in Sierra Oncology's investor call.
Sierra held an investor call on Thursday evening to discuss its newly announced global in-licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for AZD5153.
When discussing the reasons for adding AZD5153 to its pipeline, Sierra referred to possible pipeline expansion opportunities in other haematologic or solid tumour indications through potential combinations with SRA737, immune-oncology agents, PARP inhibitors, and other drugs.
SRA737 was discovered and initially developed by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in collaboration with Sareum and with Sareum and Cancer Research UK funding. SRA737 was licensed to Sierra in September 2016.
Sierra also noted that AZD5153 had shown preclinical efficacy in combination with a diverse range of agents, and that synergy between AZD5153 and a family of DNA damage response agents, suggested a potential combination with SRA737.
Sareum's CEO, Dr Tim Mitchell, commented: “It is encouraging to note from Sierra's investor call that, while it has made no commitment towards the further development of SRA737, it sees further potential opportunities for this novel agent following the addition of AZD5153 into its pipeline. We remain optimistic that Sierra will find a solution to advance development of the SRA737 programme in the future.”
Sareum's shares jumped over 8% at the open, climbing to a high of 10p per share. However, they have given up those gains and more, now trading at 8.81p, down 1.56%.
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