Press Releases

Somerset, N.J., May 17, 2005 – Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, today announced a cell line engineering collaboration with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT). Cardinal Health will use its patented Gene Product Expression (GPExTM) cell line engineering technology to engineer a cell line expressing an undisclosed CAT monoclonal antibody. 

“We are very pleased that CAT has chosen to evaluate our GPEx technology with one of their antibodies,” commented Paul Weiss, PhD, president of Cardinal Health’s biopharmaceutical development services center in Middleton, Wisconsin. “We have made great progress in developing the GPEx technology, especially for antibodies, and are looking forward to proving our ability to rapidly engineer a stable, high expressing cell line for CAT to evaluate.”

Cardinal Health’s GPEx technology enables rapid genetic engineering of stable mammalian cell lines. These cell lines are used to produce recombinant human proteins and monoclonal antibodies, which belong to the rapidly growing class of medicines known as biopharmaceuticals. In addition to enabling rapid cell line development and availability of candidate gene products, the GPEx technology is well suited for both efficient pilot and large-scale production of antibodies and other therapeutic recombinant proteins.

Through insertion of multiple copies of the gene(s), GPEx can generate, in as little as half the time required using traditional methods, stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than those cell lines generated by other methods.

“We look forward to evaluating the GPEx technology with one of our monoclonal antibodies,” commented Patrick Round, VP Development at Cambridge Antibody Technology. “We continue to evaluate new technologies to gain distinct advantages in terms of speed, expression level, consistency of expression and cost of goods”.

Cardinal Health has integrated the GPEx technology with clinical scale mammalian cell culture manufacturing to provide a more rapid way for its clients to bring biopharmaceutical products into clinical development.

“We look forward to additional collaborations with the GPEx technology, as well as clinical trials of new medicines produced from cell lines engineered with GPEx,” commented Weiss.

Financial terms of the agreement between CAT and Cardinal Health were not disclosed, and CAT does have the option of expanding the collaboration depending on the evaluation of this first GPEx cell line.

About Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health, Inc. (www.cardinalhealth.com) is the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry. Cardinal Health develops, manufactures, packages and markets products for patient care; develops drug-delivery technologies; distributes pharmaceuticals, medical-surgical and laboratory supplies; and offers consulting and other services that improve quality and efficiency in health care. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health employs more than 55,000 people on six continents and produces annual revenues of more than $65 billion.

Except for historical information, all other information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Cardinal Health's Form 10-K, Form 8-K and Form 10-Q reports (including all amendments to those reports) and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) the costs, difficulties, and uncertainties related to the integration of acquired businesses, the loss of one or more key customer or supplier relationships or changes to the terms of those relationships, changes in the distribution patterns or reimbursement rates for health-care products and/or services, the results, consequences, effects or timing of any inquiry or investigation by any regulatory authority or any legal and administrative proceedings, the impact of previously announced restatements, difficulties in opening new facilities or fully utilizing existing capacity, difficulties and uncertainties associated with business model transitions, including the conversion of margin generated from branded pharmaceutical manufacturers to non-contingent consideration, and general economic and market conditions. Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.