Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
March 6, 2002

Athenix Corporation, an industrial biotechnology company developing plants and microbes with enhanced genetics to create renewable resources for the Agricultural and Petrochemical industries, announced a strategic collaboration with AgraQuest Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, Athenix and AgraQuest will provide each other access to their respective proprietary microbial strain collections.

"We are very pleased to partner with AgraQuest and to have access to their diverse microbial strain collection." says Mike Koziel, President and CEO of Athenix. "Our unique proprietary technology platform allows us to quickly screen microbial strain collections and to efficiently identify genes with high economic value."

"We contine to rapidly expand our own proprietary microbial strain collection." adds Nadine Carozzi, Vice President of Product Development of Athenix. "AgraQuest’s microbial strain collection complements our internal research effort and substantially increases the probability for major discoveries."

AgraQuest is a biotechnology company that focuses on discovering, developing, manufacturing and marketing effective, safe and environmentally friendly natural pest management products for the agricultural, institutional, and home markets. AgraQuest is developing and commercializing a pipeline of natural pest management products, including its first product, Serenade®, and believes that its proprietary technology platform will be the foundation for the discovery and development of natural products for the pest management industry.

Athenix is a rapidly growing early-stage industrial biotechnology company developing novel genetic solutions for selected high value industrial traits. These traits are used to develop plants and microbes with enhanced genetics capable of creating renewable resources for a variety of industry sectors. Athenix is focused on two major market opportunities: 1) the discovery of genes and proteins for novel input traits and their use to develop transgenic plants for the Agricultural Chemical and Seed industries; and 2) the discovery of genes and proteins for improved biomass conversion in the Animal Feed, Chemical, and Alternative Energy industries.