First day of dealings on AIM

Sareum Holdings PLC
11 October 2004


For immediate release                                           11 October 2004


                              SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC

                          ("Sareum" or the "Company")

                                Admission to AIM

                    First day of dealings on 11 October 2004

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the structure-based drug discovery and services
business, announces its admission to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange
by way of a Placing, which has raised £2.0 million before expenses. Trading in
Sareum shares commences today, 11 October 2004.

Sareum was founded in August 2003 by a group of senior managers from the
structure-based discovery department of the US biopharmaceuticals company
Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc (Nasdaq: MLNM), following Millennium's decision
to close its UK operations and concentrate its business in the United States.

Sareum's Directors believe that the Company has developed a leading approach to
drug discovery by a combination of skills in biology, computational chemistry
and high-throughput chemical synthesis. The Directors believe that Sareum has
created an approach capable of reducing by up to half the time it takes to
discover drug candidates for pre-clinical and clinical trials.

The Company intends to create value through generating successful drug
candidates which it intends to out-license to, or partner with, pharmaceutical
companies at the Phase I or Phase II clinical trials stage. In addition, the
Company will offer services for fees. These services will include protein
structure determination, chemical library synthesis and structure-based drug
discovery project support.

Dr Paul Harper, former CEO of Cambridge Antibody Technology (LSE: CAT), is
Sareum's Non-executive Chairman. Dr Tim Mitchell, former Director of the
structure-based discovery department at Millennium, is its Chief Executive
Officer.

The Company has raised £2.0 million (gross) by way of a Placing.

The Company's Nominated Advisor is Grant Thornton Corporate Finance and Seymour
Pierce Ellis is Broker to the Company.

Commenting on the flotation, Tim Mitchell, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer,
said: "Our ability to rapidly elucidate the three-dimensional structure of drug
targets, and our ability to use those structures as the mould for generating
potential new drugs, give us confidence of success in drug discovery. We believe
our approach means we are capable of reducing, by up to half, the time it takes
to discover drug candidates. We intend to leverage this capability both for our
internal drug discovery programmes and to provide services to the pharmaceutical
industry."

Sareum's Drug Discovery Process

Sareum's structure-based approach to drug discovery includes the use of
parallelised baculovirus protein expression and high-throughput medicinal
chemistry which reduces timelines in the development of therapeutic candidates
and increases the probability of a project's success.

Structural Biology

In the five-stage drug discovery process, from identification of the target
protein, through hit identification, lead identification and lead optimisation
to the development of a candidate drug, the early solving of a protein structure
has a substantial impact on the design of suitable ligands. Current timelines in
the industry often result in protein structures being obtained during the lead
optimisation phase, too late to effectively guide ligand design. Sareum's
approach maximises the likelihood of solving the structure of a target protein
for use both in the initial design of ligands and throughout the lifetime of the
project.

Structure determination is conventionally an uncertain process owing to two
unpredictable variables in the science: successful expression of a recombinant
protein and formation of protein crystals suitable for x-ray structure
determination.  Sareum's Directors believe that they can significantly increase
likelihood of success using their expertise and automated parallel protein
expression technology, which addresses both variables.  Sareum has what it
believes to be a unique capability of parallel baculovirus expression, making at
least 96 versions of any one protein from a eukaryotic source.  The eukaryotic
source ensures that there is a maximum chance that the protein will be suitably
expressed and the multiple protein versions give a greater chance that protein
crystals can be made. By providing this information far earlier in the drug
discovery process Sareum is able to significantly increase the probability of a
successful outcome of a drug discovery project.

Computational Chemistry

Computational chemistry enables the rapid and efficient design of focused
libraries of novel chemical entities possessing desired biological and
physico-chemical properties. Screening large virtual libraries against the
structural information for a target makes possible the design of highly focused
libraries for actual synthesis, and guides the medicinal chemist's decisions on
prioritising subsequent target molecules.

High-Throughput Medicinal Chemistry

Sareum's medicinal chemistry platform, which makes extensive use of robotic
automation and parallel processing, in conjunction with the most modern
synthetic techniques, such as microwave chemistry, solid-supported reagents and
scavenging resins, allows each scientist to synthesise several hundred molecules
per week. The automated chemistry platform allows the use of many diverse
chemical reactions and enables parallel modifications of multiple chemical
families, maximising the chances of successfully delivering a pre-clinical drug
candidate.

Summary

  • In response to the needs of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology
    industries, the Directors believe that Sareum has developed, optimised and
    integrated the use of a number of highly efficient platform technologies,
    which enable the company to significantly reduce the timelines traditionally
    taken in the process of drug discovery.

  • Sareum's parallel baculovirus platform gives the maximum chance of success
    in solving the 3-dimensional structure of the target protein and
    significantly shortens the timelines involved. Successful structure solution
    can therefore have the greatest impact on the drug discovery project.

  • The 3-dimensional structure of the protein is used in a computational
    screen of virtual libraries of molecules. This allows the chemist to focus
    on the synthesis of families of compounds that will have the maximum chance
    of success.

  • Sareum's automated chemistry platform allows rapid synthesis of many
    molecules from diverse chemical families. Cycle times in the iterative
    process of taking compounds from hits to leads and through the lead
    optimisation process are reduced.

  • Ongoing use of the protein structure and refinement of the computational
    model allow the chemists to focus on the synthesis of molecules with the
    maximum chance of success.


Highlights of the Placing


Placing Price                                                                                                 2p
Number of existing Ordinary Shares                                                                   240,000,000
Number of new Ordinary Shares subject to the Placing                                                 100,000,000
Number of Ordinary Shares on Admission (including Issue Shares)                                      347,750,000
Placing Shares as a percentage of Enlarged Issued Share Capital on Admission                       28.8 per cent
Market Capitalisation of the Company on Admission at the Placing Price                             £6.96 million
Estimated gross proceeds of the Placing receivable by the Company                                  £2.00 million
Estimated net proceeds of the Placing (after expenses) receivable by the Company                   £1.75 million

For further information:

Sareum Holdings                                                                                     01223 497700
Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer
Buchanan Communications                                                                            020 7466 5000
Mark Court




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