http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990629/active_bio_1.html

Tuesday June 29, 10:28 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
 
LUND, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 29, 1999--Lakemedelsverket (the Swedish Medical Products Agency) has agreed to Active Biotech initiating clinical trials of a compound from the SAIK-project in Phase I in man. The clinical trial will commence 6 months ahead of schedule. SAIK is Active Biotech's term for a family of compounds for the regulation of the human immune defence system.

The SAIK compounds will be concentrated primarily on the treatment of MS, Multiple Sclerosis. The product will be orally active in contrast to the daily injections that the MS patients are treated with today. More than 20,000 new cases of MS, often young people, are diagnosed every year. The market for new MS therapies is estimated to be very large, as only approximately 25 per cent of patients today can be treated successfully with existing therapies.

Active Biotech AB is a biotechnology group focused on the research and development of pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Our core competence is the knowledge of the human immune defence system. We have an extensive project portfolio and considerable financial resources. The turnover Active Biotech was 259 million SEK in 1998. In Lund, Solna (Sweden) and Cambridge, UK, a total of 185 researchers are developing vaccines against tourist diarrhoea (ETEC), cholera, polio and streptococcal infections as well as innovative drugs against multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, asthma, etc.

Active Biotech AB (publ) registered number 556223-9227, P O Box 724, SE- 220 07 Lund, tel. +46 46 19 20 00, e-mail: info@activebiotech.com

info@activebiotech.com

home page: http://www.activebiotech.com

Contact:
Active Biotech AB
Sven Andreasson, CEO and President, +46 46 19 20 00
or
Hans Westerberg, US Investor Relations, 203/227 9140