Today sees the launch of Cambridge Combinatorial Limited, a company specialising in the design, production and supply of chemical structures for the drug discovery industry. Within five years, the company aims to be a world leading supplier to a market estimated to be valued at £600m by the year 2000.

The new company will bring together the talents and creativity of two of the Marchington brothers. Dr Allan Marchington, formerly Project Team Leader of Anti-virals at Pfizer, UK is Cambridge Combinatorial's Chief Executive. He is joined by his brother Dr Tony Marchington, Chief Executive, Oxford Molecular Group PLC (OMG), who becomes non-executive Chairman of the new venture. Cambridge Combinatorial has been established with a £2 million investment from the Oxford Molecular Group, with management, founding scientists and the University of Cambridge (through its intellectual property company, Cambridge University Technical Services Limited) as principal shareholders.

The new Cambridge-based company will employ recent major advances in combinatorial chemistry, methods which allow the rapid synthesis of many thousands of diverse compounds, to supply the pharmaceutical and emerging biotechnology industries with a pool of structures from which candidate drugs can be drawn. Cambridge Combinatorial will benefit from the outset from a close working relationship with its fully quoted partner, OMG.

Their scientific team is headed by Technical Director, Dr Ryszard Kobylecki, formerly Project Team Leader in Combinatorial Chemistry at Pfizer, UK and well known for his pioneering work in this field. The non-executive Directors are Professor Steven Ley, FRS (BP 1702 Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge) and Professor Alan Fersht, FRS (Herchel Smith Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Protein Engineering). Dr Mark Bradley and Dr Richard Brown, both from the University of Southampton, will act as combinatorial chemistry consultants to the company.

Dr Allan Marchington said:

"Cambridge Combinatorial is the first company to take a medicinal chemists approach to this most vital aspect of the drug discovery process. The founders' combined expertise in combinatorial chemistry and our alliance with OMG will provide our customers with a world class service".

"OMG has been fundamental in the establishment of Cambridge Combinatorial,"

commented Dr Tony Marchington. He continued:

"As a group we seek to provide innovative solutions to accelerate drug discovery. This new venture takes our vision one step further and we look forward to seeing the fruits it will undoubtedly bear for both parties."

"We feel the timing is perfect for a new company to exploit our specialist knowledge in synthesis and biological chemistry"

said Professor Alan Fersht.

Scientific co-founder, Professor Steve Ley commented:

Cambridge Combinatorial
Cambridge Combinatorial is based in Cambridge, England. It was established to capitalise on the increasing trend to outsource elements of the drug discovery process by large pharmaceutical and emerging biotechnology companies. Initial products will be moderately sized libraries of up to 20,000 compounds in a pure, well-characterised reproducible form. Milligram batches of each component in a library will be produced at a same time to provide the end-user with sufficient material for every stage of testing.

Oxford Molecular Group PLC
Oxford Molecular Group is a worldwide provider of integrated solutions for discovery research to chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and universities. Using the company's wide range of computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) software, advanced bioinformatic tools, cheminformatics solutions and collaborative research services, researchers can reduce both cost and time, expediting drug discovery across multiple disciplines.

Oxford Molecular has strategic alliances with Glaxo Wellcome, Perkin-Elmer, NeoRx Corp., Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., and Silicon Graphics, Inc., among others. It is the largest supplier of CAMD software in Japan through its distributor Sony/ Tektronix. In addition, Teijin distributes Oxford Molecular's bioinformatics products and Fujitsu distributes its RS3 Discovery software for the management of research information. Oxford Molecular has headquarters in Oxford, England and operations in Erlangen (Germany); Campbell, Calif.; Beaverton, Ore.; Rochester, N.Y.; Eagan, Minn., and Towson, Md.

For telephone interviews and further information on Tuesday 25 February, please contact:
Dr Stephen Ewing
The Society of Chemistry in Industry
Tel: 0171 235 3681 or 0378 922392.

Subsequent to that date, please contact:
Dr Allan Marchington,
Chief Executive,
Cambridge Combinatorial Limited
Tel: +44 1223 462244

Dr Tony Marchington,
Chief Executive,
Oxford Molecular Group PLC
+44 1865 784600