Re Agreement

Cambridge Antibody Tech Group PLC
20 January 2004





04/CAT/02



EMBARGOED UNTIL

06.30 GMT, 01:30 EST Tuesday 20 January 2004

For further information contact:



Cambridge Antibody Technology                       Weber Shandwick Square Mile (Europe)
                                                    
Tel: [phone]                           Tel: [phone]
Peter Chambre, Chief Executive Officer              Kevin Smith
John Aston, Chief Financial Officer                 Rachel Lankester
Rowena Gardner, Director of Corporate               
Communications

                                                    BMC Communications/The Trout Group (USA)

                                                    Tel: [phone]
                                                    Brad Miles, ext 17 (media)
                                                    Brandon Lewis, ext 15 (investors)
Lonza Group
Walter Eschenmoser, Communications & Investor
Relations, Tel: [phone]





CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGY AND LONZA EXTEND MANUFACTURING AGREEMENT

Cambridge, UK, and Basel, Switzerland... Cambridge Antibody Technology
(LSE: CAT; NASDAQ: CATG) and Lonza Group Limited (SWX: LONN) today announce the
extension of their November 2001 agreement, confirming that Lonza Biologics will
manufacture and supply clinical grade antibody drugs to CAT through to the end
of 2006.

The agreement, which is effective immediately, will guarantee that CAT and its
collaborators have access to Lonza's manufacturing capability at production 
scale (up to 2,000L) for both ongoing programmes and future projects.

Peter Chambre, CAT's CEO, commented "We are pleased with the success of our 
on-going relationship with Lonza and with the access to world class 
manufacturing facilities this offers CAT and our collaborators. This
extension enables us to plan further ahead with confidence and certainty of
access to world-class manufacturing facilities on a longer-term basis. Over the
past six years, we have developed leading skills in process optimisation for
therapeutic antibodies and have built a strong relationship with Lonza to
develop and refine efficient manufacturing processes to be used at production
scale. For CAT, this is a very cost-effective way of ensuring timely supply of
our therapeutic antibodies for our programmes and increasing the breadth of
capabilities we can offer to collaborators."

Markus Gemuend, CEO of Lonza, commented: "The extension of our agreement
with CAT is a demonstration of the confidence both parties developed over the
recent years in each other's capabilities. We are pleased to continue to
align ourselves with a leader in antibody development and to support CAT through
the next phases of their clinical programmes both for existing products and for
new products in their pipeline."


                                      ENDS



Notes to Editors


Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT):

•  CAT is a UK-based biotechnology company using its proprietary technologies 
and capabilities in human monoclonal antibodies for drug discovery and drug 
development. Based near Cambridge, England, CAT currently employs around 280 
people.

•  CAT is a leader in the discovery and development of human therapeutic
antibodies and has an advanced proprietary platform technology for rapidly
isolating human monoclonal antibodies using phage display and ribosome display
systems. CAT has extensive phage antibody libraries, currently incorporating
more than 100 billion distinct antibodies. These libraries form the basis for
the Company's strategy to develop a portfolio of antibody-based drugs.

•  Three CAT human therapeutic antibody products are now in clinical
development, with two further product candidates in pre-clinical development.

•  HUMIRATM, the leading CAT-derived antibody, isolated and optimised in
collaboration with Abbott has been approved by the US Food and Drug
Administration for marketing in the US and by the European Commission for
marketing in the EU as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.

•  Five further licensed CAT-derived human therapeutic antibodies in clinical 
development, with three further licensed product candidates in pre-clinical 
development.

•  CAT has alliances with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies 
to discover, develop and commercialise human monoclonal antibody-based
products. CAT has co-development programmes with Amrad, Elan and Genzyme.

•  CAT has also licensed its proprietary technologies to several companies.
CAT's licensees include: Abbott, Amgen, Chugai, Human Genome Sciences,
Merck & Co, Pfizer and Wyeth Research.

•  CAT is listed on the London Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ since June 2001.
CAT raised £41m in its IPO in March 1997 and £93m in a secondary offering in
March 2000.

•  CAT and Lonza Biologics announced their earlier long term agreement for
the manufacture and supply of clinical grade antibodies on 26 November 2001.



Lonza Custom Manufacturing:

•  Lonza Custom Manufacturing comprises the development and production of
small molecules by chemical synthesis and biotransformation as well as large
molecules (biopharmaceuticals) by microbial fermentation and mammalian cell
culture technology.

•  At Lonza, customer needs have top priority. Lonza Custom Manufacturing
provides a broad spectrum of development and manufacturing services in support
of each of these technologies, created through close interactive partnerships
with its customers. Full quality and regulatory support is available for
manufacture of clinical and marketed products, founded on highly qualified
scientists, know-how and extensive expertise in successful scale-up from lab to
commercial production.



Lonza:

•  Lonza is a Life Sciences driven company headquartered in Switzerland. It
is one of the leading custom manufacturers of active chemical ingredients,
intermediates and biotechnology services to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical
industries.

•  In addition, Lonza also offers organic intermediates for a wide range of
applications and provides antimicrobial and associated products as well as
polymer intermediates and compounds.

•  For more information please visit the company's website at www.lonza.com.


Application of the Safe Harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995: This press release contains statements about Cambridge Antibody
Technology Group plc ("CAT") that are forward looking statements. All statements
other than statements of historical facts included in this press release may be
forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934. These forward looking statements are based on numerous 
assumptions regarding the company's present and future business

strategies and the environment in which the company will operate in the future.
Certain factors that could cause the company's actual results, performance or 
achievements to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements 
include: market conditions, CAT's ability to enter into and maintain 
collaborative arrangements, success of product candidates in clinical trials, 
regulatory developments and competition. We caution investors not to place undue 
reliance on the forward looking statements contained in this press release. 
These statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and we 
undertake no obligation to update or revise the statements.




                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange    

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