Placement of 56,000 Ordinary Shares

Cambridge Antibody Technology Group PLC
3 December 1999


PLACEMENT OF 56,000 ORDINARY SHARES IN CAT

Melbourn, UK... Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) announces that Cazenove &
Co. has today placed for cash on behalf of the Company 56,000 ordinary shares
of 10p  each in the Company at a price of  286.5p per share.

The proceeds of the issue of these shares will be used to satisfy CAT's
liability to Stratagene of $250,000.  This liability arises under the
agreement reached in June 1999 in respect of the settlement of a patent
interference.  Under the terms of this agreement CAT's liability can be
satisfied, at CAT's option, either in cash or by the issue direct to
Stratagene of 74,743 CAT shares. 

Application will be made to The London Stock Exchange for the shares being
issued to be admitted to The Official List.  

For Further Information Contact:

Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc
Dr David Chiswell, Chief Executive Officer      Tel: [phone]
John Aston, Finance Director

HCC.De Facto
City/Financial, Sue Charles/Rebecca Hennessy    Tel: [phone]

Notes to editors:

Cambridge Antibody Technology (LSE: CAT) is a UK biotechnology company using
its proprietary technologies in fully human monoclonal antibodies for drug
discovery and drug development.  Based in Melbourn, 10 miles south of
Cambridge, England, CAT currently employs around 150 people.  In March 1997,
CAT completed its initial public offering and listing on the London Stock
Exchange, raising approximately £41 million.

CAT has a world-leading platform technology for rapidly isolating fully human
monoclonal antibodies using phage display systems.  CAT has an extensive phage
display antibody library, currently incorporating around 100 billion distinct
antibodies. This library forms the basis for the company's strategy to develop
a portfolio of clinical development programmes and for discovering new drug
leads using functional genomics.  Four fully human therapeutic antibodies
developed by CAT are at various stages of clinical trials. 

CAT has a number of license and collaborative agreements in place with
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including: Eli Lilly, Pfizer, BASF
Pharma, Genentech, ICOS Corporation, Genetics Institute/BASF Pharma,
Wyeth-Ayerst, Human Genome Sciences and AstraZeneca.