Celltech was instrumental in changing the UK's system of technology transfer from research to business, and in creating the biotechnology industry.

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.

The decision was made to give Celltech exclusive rights to all biotechnology discoveries in UK research institutions and universities.

[2] Celltech's founding CEO was Gerard Fairtlough, who worked in the National Enterprise Board and saw the opportunities presented by biotechnology.

Products included:[12] Amongst the work conducted at Celltech was the cloning of the glutamine synthetase (GS) gene in CHO cells leading to the creation of a biotechnology tool still widely used to express recombinant eukaryotic proteins.