Sareum Cuts Loss but Cash Falls to £1.2m

Sareum Holdings (AIM: SAR) narrowed its loss for the year to the 30th of June, but cash fell to £1.2m and the balance sheet moved into net liabilities. The Cambridge-based clinical-stage biotech, which develops drugs for autoimmune disease and cancer, published preliminary results at 7am today.

Loss before tax was £3.5m, against £4.9m a year earlier. Cash fell from £3.5m to £1.2m, with share issue proceeds down to £519k from £4.7m the year before. Net liabilities stood at £184k, against net assets of £2.3m in 2025.

The balance sheet was rebuilt after the year end. On the 26th of October Sareum sold 22,807,143 new shares at 14p to new and existing investors, including two new institutions, raising about £3.2m before expenses. A £150,000 retail offer through Winterflood’s WRAP platform followed at the same price.

Each subscription share carries a warrant, a right to buy one more share at a set price, here 20p, for three years. A repricing mechanism applies if shares are later sold below 20p, alongside an anti-dilution provision. Directors say year-end cash plus the new money covers at least a year.

Dr Stephen Parker, Sareum’s Executive Chairman, said the raise had a clear purpose.

The subscription we announced on 26 October 2026, for which I thank both new and existing shareholders, provides the resources to take SDC-1801 to a Phase 2-ready position and to continue our neuroscience work with TYK2.

Dr Stephen Parker, Sareum

SDC-1801 is Sareum’s lead drug, an oral drug blocking two inflammation-driving enzymes, TYK2 and JAK1, with an initial focus on psoriasis. Dosing in its safety studies, needed before Phase 2 trials, finished on the 20th of July, and topline results are due in the fourth quarter. A short human study and a new capsule formulation follow, targeting Phase 2 readiness in mid-2027.

The US drug regulator approved a rival TYK2/JAK1 drug, Priovant Therapeutics’ brepocitinib (Lisraya), in August, which Parker said reinforces progress in the field. Sareum plans to complete early development and then out-license, and is seeking partners for two other programmes, SDC-1802 and SRA737.