Celltech was formed in 1980 in response to the concern that Britain was failing to commercialise its science and was missing out on the potential of the new biotechnology. There was especial concern that whereas US firms had been creating rapidly growing firms such as
Genentech around scientific discoveries in biotechnology, the UK had missed opportunities such as that believed to be provided by the
Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the production technique for
Monoclonal antibody by
Cesar Milstein and
Georges Kohler at
Cambridge University. Celltech's founding CEO was
Gerard Fairtlough, who worked in the National Enterprise Board and saw the opportunities presented by biotechnology. He created the plan for Celltech and when the Board was created, it believed he was the best person to lead it. Fairtlough was an inspirational leader with innovative ideas on organisation. In the decade that Fairtlough led Celltech, he not only helped found a significant scientific endeavour whose example led to improved ambition and ability to commercialise UK research, but introduced a new way of organising high technology firms. In 1999 Celltech led consolidation in the
UK biosciences market merging with
Chiroscience plc, after which it was briefly referred to as
Celltech Chiroscience, and then buying Medeva plc. Then in 2000 it bought Cistron, a
US biosciences business. It expanded into Germany in 2001 buying Thiemann, a German biosciences business, and went on to buy Oxford Glycosciences in July 2003 for £102m. Celltech was acquired by
UCB, a
Belgian drugmaker, in 2004. ==Operations==