Launch of Crystal Bank

Sareum Holdings PLC
01 September 2005


For immediate release                                           1 September 2005



                              SAREUM HOLDINGS PLC

                          ("Sareum" or "The Company")


      Launch of Crystal Bank to Accelerate Structure-Based Drug Discovery

Sareum Holdings plc (AIM: SAR), the specialist structure-based drug discovery
and services business, is pleased to announce the launch of "Crystal Bank", a
highly valuable resource to accelerate drug discovery by rapidly accessing
protein structure data.

Sareum's Crystal Bank is a unique and expanding collection of therapeutically
relevant protein targets on which the Company is able to rapidly generate
structural data that illustrates the precise nature of how potential drug
candidates associate with a target protein. This valuable information assists
the accelerated discovery of improved therapies against many important diseases
including cancer, inflammation and metabolic disorders.

Commenting on the announcement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim
Mitchell, said: "This exciting new extension to our capabilities provides us
with an important additional source of revenues, and very effectively
demonstrates our success in solving the structures of therapeutically relevant
proteins, a key component of our core drug discovery business."

For further information:

Sareum Holdings                                                     01223 497700
Tim Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer

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


Notes for editors:

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 its unique 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


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            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange                   RR