Sareum Announces HIV/AIDS Collaboration with Idenix

Sareum Holdings plc has announced that it has entered into a collaborative agreement with Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Sareum will utilise its expertise and skills in high throughput protein expression, purification and structure determination to provide support for Idenix’s program to discover drug candidates for the treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS. 

Sareum will seek to illustrate the nature and manner in which Idenix’s potential drug candidates interact with an HIV virus protein that is thought to be responsible for the development of viral resistance to many currently approved HIV/AIDS therapies.

In return, Sareum will receive research fees and success milestone payments, the majority of which are expected to be recognized in the financial year to June 2006.

This announcement follows the trading update issued by Sareum on 5th January 2006 where the Company stated that it had entered into several collaborations in late December, one of which is Idenix.

Commenting on the agreement, Sareum’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell, said, "We are delighted that Idenix has chosen Sareum as their partner for protein structure determination."

"This collaboration, which is in an important new area of medicine to Sareum, validates the flexibility of our technology platform."

"Our track record in securing collaborations such as this demonstrates we are a partner of choice for high-throughput protein structure determination."