Sareum Holdings PLC on Wednesday after Sierra Oncology Inc, a subsidiary of GSK PLC, said it intends to return the rights for SRA737 to the CRT Pioneer Fund LP.

Shares in the Cambridge, England-based drug developer for cancer and autoimmune diseases were down 19% to 159.00 pence each in London on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, shares of Brentford, London-based biopharma firm GSK rose 0.8% to 1,367.40p each.

SRA737 is a clinical-stage oral, selective Checkpoint kinase 1 inhibitor that targets cancer cell replication and DNA damage repair mechanisms.

It was initially developed by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research in collaboration with Sareum. Cancer Research UK and Sareum funded the programme.

CRT Pioneer Fund bought worldwide commercial rights to the programme in 2013. SRA737 was then licensed by CPF to Sierra in September 2016.

Sierra was acquired by GSK in July 2022 in a $1.9 billion deal.

In this time, Sierra progressed SRA737 through Phase 1/2 clinical development, but did not progress the asset beyond these trials.

Sareum said it will discuss with CRT Pioneer Fund the potential future development opportunities for SRA737 and evaluate its next steps accordingly.

Tim Mitchell, Sareum’s Chief Executive Officer, said: ‘We continue to believe that SRA737 has great potential in several oncology applications, and Sareum now has the opportunity to be involved in planning its future development, supported by the positive clinical studies previously undertaken by Sierra.’

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