UK-based biotechnology, Cambridge Antibody Technology and Lonza Group Limited, a life sciences driven company headquartered in Switzerland, announce the extension of their November 2001 agreement, confirming that Lonza Biologics will manufacture and supply clinical grade antibody drugs to CAT through to the end of 2006.

The agreement, which is effective immediately, will guarantee that CAT and its collaborators have access to Lonza's manufacturing capability at production scale (up to 2,000L) for both ongoing programmes and future projects.

Peter Chambré, CAT's CEO, commented, "We are pleased with the success of our on-going relationship with Lonza and with the access to world class manufacturing facilities this offers CAT and our collaborators. This extension enables us to plan further ahead with confidence and certainty of access to world-class manufacturing facilities on a longer-term basis. Over the past six years, we have developed leading skills in process optimisation for therapeutic antibodies and have built a strong relationship with Lonza to develop and refine efficient manufacturing processes to be used at production scale. For CAT, this is a very cost-effective way of ensuring timely supply of our therapeutic antibodies for our programmes and increasing the breadth of capabilities we can offer to collaborators."

Markus Gemuend, CEO of Lonza, commented: "The extension of our agreement with CAT is a demonstration of the confidence both parties developed over the recent years in each other's capabilities. We are pleased to continue to align ourselves with a leader in antibody development and to support CAT through the next phases of their clinical programmes both for existing products and for new products in their pipeline."