Collaboration with UCB

Sareum Holdings PLC
26 January 2006


For immediate release                                        26th January 2006



                              SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC
                         ("Sareum" or the "Company")

                      Crystal Bank Collaboration with UCB


Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drug discovery
and services business, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a
collaborative agreement with UCB, (Euronext: UCB), a global biopharmaceutical
leader with annual revenues over € 2 billion and headquarters in Brussels,
Belgium, to provide protein structure determination capabilities to accelerate
UCB's cancer drug discovery research.

Sareum will provide UCB with access to its Crystal Bank protein structures that
are drug discovery targets in several therapeutic areas. Sareum will then
generate structures of selected proteins engaged with UCB's potential drug
candidates. This detailed structural information aims to illustrate the precise
nature of how UCB's potential drug candidates interact with their target
receptor proteins, thus assisting UCB's scientists in their search for new and
improved therapeutics in a number of clinical indications.

In return, Sareum will receive access fees and success milestone payments.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,
said: "We are delighted that UCB has chosen Sareum as their partner in protein
structure determination. This is a further important collaboration that Sareum
has signed with a global pharmaceutical company and an additional example of how
our Crystal Bank protein structure resource is providing revenues to support our
in-house drug discovery programs."

Commenting on the agreement, UCB's Mark Busfeild, Vice President, NCE Research,
said: "UCB recognises the value provided by Sareum's Crystal Bank service. It
provides us with rapid access to crystal structures with our own proprietary
compounds, complementing our internal structural biology capabilities."

For further information please contact:

Sareum Holdings                                                   01223 497700
Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer

Buchanan Communications                                          020 7466 5000
Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson

About Sareum Holdings plc
Sareum Holdings plc 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.

Structure-based drug discovery involves the determination of a disease causing
protein's three-dimensional structure. Once the structure is known, novel
chemical entities are designed to 'lock-in' to the protein with the aim of
reversing or arresting a disease's progression.

Sareum's approach to structure based drug discovery is to produce multiple
recombinant proteins primarily through a baculovirus expression system;
determine their structure using x-ray crystallography; and then use its
innovative template-molecule x-ray screening technology to identify new chemical
entities designed to interact with the target protein. Sareum then uses its
high-throughput medicinal chemistry platform to rapidly synthesise further
molecules and develop the most promising into potential 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.

Sareum joined the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2004 and
trades under the symbol SAR. For further information, please visit
www.sareum.co.uk

About Crystal Bank
Sareum's Crystal Bank is a highly valuable resource for clients requiring fast
turnaround of structural data that shows how their compounds bind with selected
protein targets. Such information accelerates the validation and selection of
novel lead compounds and is therefore invaluable at both the hit-to-lead and the
lead optimisation stages of drug discovery research.

Crystal Bank is a unique and expanding collection of important protein targets
that are known to be of significant therapeutic relevance. These proteins come
from a range of protein classes and have all been analysed and understood to a
level where we can rapidly and cost-effectively generate ligand co-complex
structural data for our clients' compounds. The co-complex structural data, and
the associated understanding of the Structure-Activity Relationship, help our
clients to:

   • Prioritise leads based on actual and potential interactions with
     proteins
   • Boost ligand potency
   • Overcome selectivity issues
   • Identify sites to attach PK-modifying groups without affecting potency
     or selectivity
   • Identify lead hopping opportunities

Sareum's Crystal Bank currently comprises 17 structures, including Bcl-2, GSK3
beta, p38 MAP kinase, CDK2/Cyclin A2, Zap-70, Erk2 and PPAR delta. The full list
is available on request.
About UCB.

UCB (www.ucb-group.com) is a global biopharmaceutical leader with headquarters
in Brussels, Belgium, specializing in the fields of central nervous system
disorders, allergy and respiratory diseases, immune and inflammatory disorders,
as well as oncology. UCB key products are Keppra(R) (antiepileptic), Xyzal(R)
and Zyrtec(R) (antiallergics), Nootropil(R) (cerebral function regulator),
Tussionex(TM) (antitussive) and Metadate(TM) / Equasym XL(TM) (attention deficit
/hyperactivity disorder). UCB employs over 8,500 people operating in over 40
countries. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (UCB / UCBBt.BR / UCB BB).




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