SAN DIEGO -- Accelrys, Inc. (ACCL) , the leading provider of scientific business intelligence software and services, together with CMR Fuel Cells and Johnson Matthey Plc, announced the formation of a UK-based Research Consortium. Funding has been awarded through DTI's Technology Programme competition. The DTI will award the Consortium a total of GBP 1.15 million over the duration of the three-year grant to offset research expenses. The partners will pool their respective research and development expertise in the areas of catalyst science, materials modelling, workflows and databases to develop predictive methods for the development of advanced low-cost catalysts.

Welcoming the new partnership, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling, said: "Innovation and new ideas translate into new jobs, which benefits the UK as a whole. That's why we're investing GBP 1.15m in this collaboration to help further develop hydrogen technology for cars and other products and make it cheaper and more efficient. This research is good for consumers and the environment, potentially cutting costs and emissions."

The Consortium plans to develop and validate a unique set of predictive tools based upon the latest scientific understanding of how electro catalysts function. In doing so, it aims to accelerate the progress towards commercial applications for fuel cells and provide fundamental advancement of catalyst research.

"The UK Department of Trade and Industry award for this project recognizes the increasing importance of modelling and simulation tools in the design of new materials which are vital to achieving the required step-change in fuel cell catalyst development and to pulling the technology through to the marketplace," says Mark Emkjer, president and CEO of Accelrys Inc. "We are proud to be partners in this important project with Johnson Matthey and CMR Fuel Cells, both recognized experts in fuel cell technology."

"The ability to implement fully validated modelling tools to allow the exploration of a vast phase space has very exciting potential within the fuel cell market place and we are pleased to have this opportunity to collaborate with our partners on such a high impact project," says Sam French, Senior Scientist, Johnson Matthey Plc.

Michael Priestnall, Chief Technology Officer, CMR, commented: "To deliver the exceptional cost and performance benefits that our unique stack architecture brings to the portable power market, we adopt the most active, stable, cost efficient and selective fuel cell electro catalysts available. I am very pleased to be able to bring our expertise and resources together with that of our partners to develop the tools that will enable us to continually improve the performance of our fuel cell stack products."
Further Information

Accelrys Ltd            Johnson Matthey TC      CMR Fuel Cells plc

Gerhard Goldbeck-Wood   Dr Sam French           John Halfpenny - CEO
Director, European      frencsa@matthey.com     +44 (0) 1223 875 544
 Materials Science      Tel +44 (0)118 924 2195
 Marketing                                     
gerhard@accelrys.com                            
+44 1223 228576                                 

Gema Diaz
European Communications
gemad@accelrys.com
+44(0) 1223 228610

About Accelrys, Inc:
Accelrys develops and commercializes Scientific Business Intelligence software for the integration, mining, analysis, modeling and simulation, management and interactive reporting of scientific data. Our solutions are used by biologists, chemists, materials scientists, and information technology professionals for product design as well as drug discovery and development. Our technology and services are designed to meet the needs of today's leading research and development organizations including leading commercial, government and academic organizations. Many of the largest pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, and petroleum companies worldwide use our solutions. Accelrys is headquartered in San Diego, California. For more information about Accelrys, visit its website at http://www.accelrys.com/.

About CMR Fuel Cells plc:
CMR Fuel Cells plc is a UK developer of fuel cell stacks for portable and small stationary power generation applications. The Company plans to become a leading supplier of fuel cell products, based on its simple but revolutionary patented stack architecture which delivers longer run-time and lower costs than conventional fuel cell stacks.
About Johnson Matthey plc:

Johnson Matthey is a global business with units dedicated to the supply of high quality fuel cell components, hydrogen production and purification and activities in hydrogen storage and purification. For fuel cells, the business has operations in the UK, USA and Japan, including a state of the art manufacturing facility in Swindon, UK. Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells is at the forefront of development of precious metal catalyst systems and membrane electrode assemblies and is able to tailor products to specific applications, designs and operating conditions to achieve the best possible performance.