Cytel Announces Achievement of Milestone in Baxter Collaboration.

SAN DIEGO, CA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 6, 1997--Cytel Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTL) today announced receipt of a $500,000 payment from Baxter Healthcare Corporation's Nextran unit following delivery of the initial batch of a bioactive carbohydrate to be used in Nextran's xenotransplantation product. Under a collaboration agreement signed in October, Nextran made an up-front payment and an equity investment in Cytel for the right to enter into an exclusive supply agreement for the carbohydrate with Cytel's Glycotechnology business unit. The agreement provides for further product development milestone payments to Cytel prior to commercialization.

Xenotransplantation is the process of transplanting animal organs into humans. While 35,000 patients worldwide received human organ transplants in 1995, a critical shortage of organs left as many as 100,000 patients in need. Xenotransplantation holds great promise for making organs available to the thousands of patients currently on waiting lists for donor organs.

Without intervention, a pig organ would typically survive less than an hour in a human recipient because human blood contains antibodies that immediately recognize and attack an alpha-galactose carbohydrate expressed on the surface of the donor organ, resulting in hyperacute rejection. Nextran's strategy for preventing this hyperacute rejection includes the use of a column which contains an alpha-galactose carbohydrate manufactured by Cytel which is similar to the carbohydrate found on pig tissues. Prior to transplant, the recipient's blood will be filtered through this column to remove the rejection-causing antibodies.

To manufacture the column carbohydrate, Cytel is using its proprietary enzymatic sugar nucleotide cycling technology ("SNC Technology"), which enables the large-scale manufacture of bioactive carbohydrates at commercially viable costs. The company has established a broad proprietary position covering its SNC Technology, including 16 issued United States patents and 35 United States patent applications, four with notices of allowance. Cytel also has acquired extensive expertise in the expression, production and purification of enzymes useful in the manufacture of bioactive carbohydrates. Through its recently established Glycotechnology business unit, Cytel is actively pursuing additional opportunities to collaborate on the development and manufacture of bioactive carbohydrates for medical and consumer products.

Cytel Corporation is a leader in the discovery, design and development of immunotherapeutics, a class of drugs which the company believes will be more selective and have fewer side effects than drugs currently on the market. Cytel's core technology platforms consist of the Immune Stimulation Program under which the company is developing therapeutic vaccines for infectious diseases and cancers, the Immune Suppression Program which is based on anti-inflammatory cell adhesion inhibitors, and Glycotechnology--its proprietary SNC Technology enabling the manufacture of large quantities of complex carbohydrates at commercially viable prices.

Actual results may differ materially from the above forward- looking statements due to a number of important factors, including but not limited to the risks associated with the timing and cost of conducting human clinical trials, the possibility that testing may reveal undesirable and unintended side effects or other characteristics that may prevent or limit the commercial use of proposed products and the risks associated with negotiating and implementing successful collaborative arrangements. These factors are more fully discussed in Cytel's most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Qs.

CONTACT: Cytel Corporation

Karin Eastham, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

619/552-3000