Collaboration

Sareum Holdings PLC
15 December 2004


For immediate release                                          15 December 2004


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

                   Collaboration with UK Pharmaceutical Company

                 Protein Expression and Structure Determination

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the structure-based drug discovery and services
business, has entered into a collaborative agreement with an unnamed UK
pharmaceutical company to provide protein structure determination services that
will support the client's research against diseases of the central nervous
system.

Sareum's expertise in protein expression and structure determination will
support the client's drug discovery programme by seeking to illustrate the
precise nature of the interactions between the drug candidates and the target
protein, thereby assisting the client's scientists in the development of more
effective medicines against diseases of the central nervous system.

This collaboration represents a significant new deal for Sareum and is on a
fee-for-service basis. Under the terms of the agreement Sareum will receive
substantial upfront and success payments.

This agreement, in combination with previously announced fee-for-service
collaborations, potentially represents more than 80% of Sareum's budgeted
revenues for the current financial year to 30 June 2005.

Commenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,
said: "We are delighted to be providing provide drug discovery services in this
important area of research. This is yet another key collaboration that Sareum
has signed since we started trading on AIM and represents a significant step
towards achieving our revenue targets for the year.  We look forward to a
successful outcome and further partnerships such as this one."

For further information:

Sareum Holdings                                                   01223 497700
Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer

Buchanan Communications                                           020 7466 5000
Mark Court, Mary-Jane Johnson

About Sareum Holdings plc

Sareum Holdings plc is a structure based drug discovery business headquartered
in Cambridge, UK. The Company was formed in August 2003 to discover new drugs
for the treatment of cancer and inflammation 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 the
Company's computational chemistry expertise to create virtual, focused libraries
of new chemical entities designed to interact with the target protein. Sareum
then uses its high-throughput medicinal chemistry platform to rapidly synthesise
these molecules and develop the most promising into potential drug candidates.

Sareum offers its accelerated drug discovery capabilities on a fee basis to the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Sareum intends to license out its
internally generated drug candidates 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



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