Sareum Holdings Plc (LON:SAR) said it had regained the rights to a pre-clinical technology that may have the potential to treat acute myeloid leukaemia and other blood-borne cancers.
The Aurora+FLT3 kinase inhibitors were handed back by Hebei Medical University Biomedical Engineering Center (HMUBEC), a Chinese group, which encountered "ongoing issues relating to the intravenous formulation".
This prevented higher doses from being explored to establish maximum-tolerated amount, delaying the completion of toxicity studies, the UK drug developer said.
A number of factors
This was one of a number of factors that prompted the return, added Sareum, which is funding formulation specialists here in the UK to try and resolve the intravenous issues to allow completion of the preclinical studies.
In parallel, the group is exploring whether the drug can be taken by mouth.
The company's chief executive, Dr Tim Mitchell, said the data generated to date from HMUBEC's pre-clinical programme provided "encouraging insights" to the potential of the Aurora+FLT3 inhibitor candidate.
Pleased to regain rights
"We are pleased to regain the worldwide rights to these inhibitors, particularly as recent industry activity suggests a resurgence of interest in Aurora kinase as a target for cancer drugs," he added
Aurora+FLT3 kinase inhibitors target two mechanisms important in the progression of certain cancers – cell division (mitosis) and FLT3 kinase over-activation, which is the most common mutation of acute myeloid leukaemia.
Sareum will now take ownership of all the preclinical data generated by HMUBEC and control of any future preclinical development programme for both intravenous and oral formulations of drug candidates.
"We will provide a further update on our plans with these molecules once we have completed a review of the data and our options," said chief executive Mitchell.