LONDON, 12 June, 2017:

Arix Bioscience plc (LSE: ARIX) (“Arix Bioscience” or the “Company”), a global healthcare and life science company supporting medical innovation, is pleased to note the announcement by Artios Pharma Ltd, an Arix Bioscience Group Business, that it has signed a research collaboration and option agreement with Masaryk University (“MU”) in the Czech Republic for the development of novel cancer treatments targeting DNA nucleases involved in the DNA damage response (DDR).

DNA nucleases are enzymes crucial for processing strands of DNA following damage. Artios believes that nuclease inhibitors could have broad potential as selective treatments for a range of cancers, particularly in tumours that have defects in their DNA repair processes and are reliant on their remaining, nuclease-dependent DDR pathways.

The research at MU is being led by Dr Lumir Krejci and Dr Kamil Paruch, both of whom have considerable scientific expertise in the field of DDR, particularly with regards to the role of nucleases in DNA double strand break repair and other DNA repair pathways, as well as valuable industry experience in medicinal chemistry and drug development of nuclease targets.

Under the terms of the agreement, Artios will fund and collaborate with the research group at MU to undertake a focussed research and development programme on a number of promising nuclease targets. The agreement, which runs initially for two years and can be extended for up to a further two years, provides Artios with the opportunity to in-license one or more nuclease programmes for further development and commercialisation.