CAT Catco Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Limited

RNS Number:4428G
Cambridge Antibody Tech Group PLC
1 March 2000


CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGY GROUP PLC - 1 March 2000

For Further Information Contact:

Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc
Tel: +44 (0) 1763 263233
Dr David Chiswell, Chief Executive Officer
John Aston, Finance Director
Rowena Gardner, Communications Manager


HCC.De Facto
Tel: +44 (0) 171 496 3300
City/Financial, Sue Charles
Trade, Nikul Odedra


CAT AND HUMAN GENOME SCIENCES ("HGSI") CREATE MAJOR ALLIANCE
DEDICATED TO DEVELOPING HUMAN ANTIBODY
THERAPEUTICS AGAINST GENOMICS TARGETS

HGSI and CAT broaden relationship with commitment by HGSI of
$67 million in up front funding
CAT also announces it is at an advanced stage of preparation
for a fund raising

Melbourn, UK.. Cambridge Antibody Technology ("CAT") (LSE: CAT)
today announced a new, 10 year agreement with Human Genome
Sciences Inc (HGSI) (Nasdaq: HGSI) for the development of
custom-developed, fully human antibody therapeutics against
genomics-derived disease targets.

HGSI and CAT plan to combine their resources to develop and
sell a significant number of therapeutic antibody products.
CAT will have access to selected HGSI derived sequence and
biological information and has the right to select up to twenty-
four proprietary HGSI antigens for preclinical development.
CAT has rights to develop six such products on its own.  HGSI
is entitled to clinical development milestones and royalty
payments on such products.  HGSI has the option to share
clinical development costs and to share the profits equally
with CAT on up to eighteen such products.

The agreement provides HGSI with rights to use CAT technology
to develop and sell fully human antibodies for therapeutic and
diagnostic purposes.  HGSI will pay CAT clinical development
milestones and royalties based on product sales.  HGSI also has
rights to use CAT antibody technology for the use and sale of
certain research tools and CAT will receive a proportion of
revenues on such sales.

Under the agreement HGSI will buy 1.67 million shares of CAT
for the sterling equivalent of US$55 million, giving it an
initial equity stake of approximately six per cent. in CAT.
The investment, which is subject to approval by CAT
shareholders, will be made at a price of #20.75 per share,
being a 20 per cent. premium to the average share price for the
10 days preceding this announcement.  HGSI also will pay an
additional $12 million in licensing fees to CAT which includes
research support at CAT for three years to help develop HGSI
human antibody products.  The total up-front cash receipts to
CAT will be equivalent to $67 million.

Dr. David Chiswell, Chief Executive Officer of CAT, commented,
"We are delighted to have broadened the scope and potential of
our relationship with HGSI, particularly as it is only six
months since the signature of our initial alliance.  Genomics
is the future source of targets and human antibodies clearly
will be a major class of future drugs: this alliance unites
both with a truly powerful synergy.

Furthermore, the commercial potential of custom-developed human
antibody drugs is being increasingly recognised by the
pharmaceutical industry. Adding this broadened relationship
with HGSI to CAT's other alliances with major companies
including Searle, Wyeth-Ayerst and BASF Pharma has established
CAT's position as having access to substantial numbers of drug
targets and to partners to be able to generate a substantial
pipeline of human antibody drugs.   This gives CAT the
opportunity to aggressively develop and commercialise its own
pipeline of drugs."

William A. Haseltine, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of HGSI said, "This agreement binds together two
powerful modern technologies -- genomics and human antibody
product development.  We plan to work very closely with
scientists at CAT both on the development of our initial
products as well on the development of a significant number of
joint products."

Craig A. Rosen, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Research and
Development, of HGSI, said, "I am delighted that we can combine
HGSI's deep expertise and knowledge of genomics with CAT's
cutting edge human antibody technology.  CAT's phage display
technology for the production of fully human antibodies is
ideally suited to high throughput technologies needed to take
advantage of our unique genomic resources.  Our two scientific
teams have already proved that they work well together.  Over
the past six months HGSI and CAT have made substantial progress
in developing a fully human therapeutic antibody to a specific
antigen under the terms of our prior agreement.  We all look
forward to an exciting future with our partners at CAT."

CAT also announces that it is in the advanced stages of
preparation with its advisers, Deutsche Bank and Cazenove, for
a fund raising, both in the UK and internationally, to expand
and continue the Company's successful operations/strategy.  It
is expected that further details will be announced in the near
future.

This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in
the United States.  Any such securities may not be offered or
sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption
from registration, any public offering of securities to be made
in the United States will be made by means of a prospectus that
may be obtained from the Company and will contain detailed
information about the Company and management, as well as
financing statements.

The issue of this announcement has been approved by the
directors of Cambridge Antibody Technology who accept
responsibility for the information contained in it.  This
announcement has been approved for the purposes of section 57
of the Financial Services Act 1986 by Deutsche Bank and
Cazenove, both of which are regulated in the UK by The
Securities and Futures Authority Limited.  Deutsche Bank and
Cazenove are acting for Cambridge Antibody Technology and no
one else in connection with the Fundraising and will not be
responsible to anyone other than Cambridge Antibody Technology
for providing the protections afforded to customers of Deutsche
Bank and Cazenove nor for providing advice in relation to the
Fundraising.


END



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