RNS Number:7775H
Medical Solutions PLC
21 February 2003

For Immediate Release                                    07.00, 21 February 2003


                             Medical Solutions plc

               Wins Cancer & Pathology Contract with AstraZeneca

                  Medical Signs First Pharmaceutical Contract


Nottingham, UK: Medical Solutions, a supplier of high technology equipment and
pathology services, is pleased to announce it has secured a major cancer
services contract with AstraZeneca - its first pharmaceutical contract.

Under the terms of the contract, Medical Solutions will supply high quality
human tissue-based evaluation services to AstraZeneca using a combination of its
in-house services and technologies.  The cancer diagnosis service will be
provided out of the Group's rapidly expanding pathology division, Pathlore,
whilst any use of digital image capture & quantification technologies will be
from Kinetic and Fairfield Imaging. All these divisions form part of the Medical
Solutions Group.

Charles Green, Chief Executive Officer of Medical, commenting on its first
contract with a major player in the pharmaceutical industry, said:

"This contract is of vital importance for the re-focused Group as it underlines
our strategy of increasing our specialisation on cancer and cancer related
services within the pharmaceutical industry. To date, the majority of our
pathology work has been principally with the NHS and academic institutions so
this contract with AZ marks a significant step change in our business model.

"This contract combines use of the different services now making up Medical
Solutions' business and it is hoped that when combined these synergistic
services will deliver the currently unmet requirements of the Pharmaceutical and
Biotechnology sector. I hope this will be the start of many similar deals and
look forward to updating the market."

                                    - ENDS -


For further information, please contact:
Medical Solutions
Charles Green, Chief Executive Officer                Tel:  +44 (0) 115 975 5072

Buchanan Communications                                Tel: +44 (0) 207 466 5000
Nicola How / James Strong                   Mobiles: 07956 597099 / 07884 181081


Notes to Editors:

Medical Solutions:

Medical Solutions operates two divisions: technology and services.  The services
undertakes contract pathology work for the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry
and has a tissue collection facility and compromises Pathlore and Peterborough
Cellular Pathology Services (PCPS).  Technology contains two complimentary
businesses with expertise in imaging which compromises Fairfield and Kinetic
Imaging.

PathLore

PathLore primarily undertakes contract pathology work for UK hospitals and NHS
trusts. PathLore's reference laboratories provide a comprehensive range of
tests, provide prognostic profiling for the selection of appropriate adjuvant
therapy, tissue preparation and evaluation for drug development and clinical
trial evaluation, and cervical screening and general cytology. As at 16 November
2002, PathLore employed 50 consultant pathologists providing specialist remote
locum services to 12 hospitals and NHS trusts. The number of tests carried out
by PathLore has grown significantly month on month since its launch in June
2001. In December 2001 the volume of tests undertaken was under 1,000, in June
2002 it was 2,108 and more recently in August 2002, 3,237 tests were carried
out.

PCPS

PathLore together with PCPS, Fairfield and Kinetic are best placed to support
the drug development programmes of major Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies.
Collectively, they provide comprehensive expertise to support all aspects of
human diseased and normal tissue handling and characterisation from
microscopical morphological assessment through to the extraction and analysis of
individual components and molecules, including DNA, RNA, and proteins.

Fairfield

Fairfield has developed software image analysis management systems for cancer
diagnosis, prognosis and telepathology, allowing tissue samples to be examined
at high resolution under the control of a clinician operating from a remote
location. This system is ideally suited to the organisation of NHS cancer
networks in the UK, and the support of drug research by pharmaceutical and
biotech companies. The recently announced arrangement to supply 7 hospitals
centred around Edinburgh with its product, PathSight, together with the
opportunities to cross sell diagnosis services from PathLore's pathologists has
endorsed the Directors belief of the strong potential growth in this part of the
business.

Kinetic

Kinetic is a leader in fluorescent imaging with its Komet product, measuring DNA
damage in cells, and Live Cell Imaging products, and has many major cancer
research establishments as customers.

SurePath

The rights to distribute the SurePath LBC (Liquid Based Cytology - a new method
for analysing cervical tests) system in the UK are excluded from the sale of
Cellpath.  It is proposed that these rights will be formally novated to the
Company.  The Directors are confident that SurePath should benefit from the
setting up of dedicated LBC units. In Scotland, LBC implementation is to be
completed between 1 January 2003 and April 2004. The UK government has also
committed to the establishment of 80 new LBC screening centres in the UK by the
end of 2004.


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