Collaboration with Organon

Sareum Holdings PLC 17 January 2006 For Immediate Release Organon and Sareum Announce Research Collaboration in Autoimmune Disease January 17, 2006, Oss, The Netherlands, and Cambridge, UK - Organon, the human health care business unit of Akzo Nobel and Sareum Holdings plc, the specialist structure-based drug discovery and services business, today announced a collaborative research agreement. The aim of this collaboration, in which Sareum will potentially dedicate a multi-disciplinary research team for over one year, is to generate lead chemical series for development by Organon into novel therapies for autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Sareum will endeavor to determine the three-dimensional structures of two of the Organon autoimmune disease protein targets and then deploy its innovative Template Screening method to identify novel compounds suitable for optimisation into lead drug candidates, using its automated medicinal chemistry platform. In return, Sareum will receive research fees and success milestone payments. Financial details were not disclosed. This is the second announcement relating to the trading update issued by Sareum on 5th January 2006 where Sareum stated that it had entered into several collaborations in late December, one of which is with Organon. Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell, said: "We are delighted that Organon has chosen Sareum as their partner in drug lead identification and optimisation. This is the largest collaboration we have signed to date, and brings together our expertise in protein structure determination, Template Screening and automated chemistry. We look forward to successfully identifying novel drug leads for this important therapeutic area." Dr David Nicholson, Executive Vice President Global Research, Organon International Inc. added: "This collaboration with Sareum fits very well with our ambitions of expanding the breadth and depth of our research programs. Access to new technologies and the focus on new therapeutic areas such as immunology are important building blocks to accomplish these ambitions. We believe that expanded research activities through partnerships are critical to fueling our future pipeline." For further information: Sareum Holdings plc +44 1223 497 700 Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer Organon +31 412 66 54 40 Monique Mols, Director Media Relations monique.mols@organon.com Buchanan Communications +44 207 466 5000 Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson Notes for editors: About Sareum Holdings plc Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR) is a specialist structure based drug discovery and services business headquartered in Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugs for the treatment of cancer and to provide a range of drug discovery services to the pharmaceutical industry. Sareum's unique approach aims to halve the time it takes to discover new drug candidates. Sareum provides its specialist drug discovery capabilities to partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The Company aims to successfully deliver: Programmes for complete gene-to-candidate structure-based discovery; projects to accelerate or improve the productivity of specific activities; and drug candidates for licensing at the Phase I or Phase II clinical trials stage. For further information, please visit www.sareum.co.uk About Organon Organon - with shared head offices in Roseland, NJ, USA and Oss, The Netherlands - creates, manufactures and markets prescription medicines that improve the health and quality of human life. Through a combination of independent growth and business partnerships, Organon strives to remain or become one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in each of its core therapeutic fields: gynecology, fertility, neuroscience and anesthesia. Organon products are sold in over 100 countries, of which more than 60 have an Organon subsidiary. Organon is the human health care business unit of Akzo Nobel. For further information, please visit www.organon.com Safe Harbor Statement* This report contains statements which address such key issues as Organon's growth strategy, future financial results, market positions, product development, pharmaceutical products in the pipeline, and product approvals. Such statements, including but not limited to the "Outlook," should be carefully considered, and it should be understood that many factors could cause forecasted and actual results to differ from these statements. These factors include, but are not limited to price fluctuations, currency fluctuations, developments in raw material and personnel costs, pensions, physical and environmental risks, legal issues, and legislative, fiscal, and other regulatory measures. These factors also include changes in regulations or interpretations related tothe implementation and reporting under IFRS, decisions to apply a different option of presentation permitted by IFRS, and various other factors related to the implementation of IFRS, including the implementation of IAS 32 and 39 for financial instruments. Stated competitive positions are based on management estimates supported by information provided by specialized external agencies. For a more complete discussion of the risk factors affecting our business please see the Akzo Nobel Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, a copy of which can be found on the Company's website www.akzonobel.com. * Pursuant to the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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