Canadian Biotechnology Company to expedite development process for biopharmaceuticals

SemBioSys Genetics Inc. (TSX:SBS), a biotechnology company developing a broad pipeline of protein-based pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceutical products, today announced an agreement to acquire technology assets and in-license intellectual property related to the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals in safflower from Syngenta Crop Protection AG. The assets and intellectual property will allow SemBioSys to further increase its efficiency in the development of transgenic safflower by shortening the time it takes to develop safflower plants producing the desired pharmaceutical protein.

Under the agreement, SemBioSys has issued warrants that allow Syngenta to purchase an aggregate of 550,000 common shares of SemBioSys at an exercise price of $13.21 per share, based on two times the trading price per share on the 20 day average trading price prior to issuing the warrant. The term of the warrants is five years. The warrants will not be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"This technology will improve our productivity, expand our ability to make decisions earlier in the development process and allow us to accelerate new products into the clinic," said Andrew Baum, President and CEO of SemBioSys Genetics Inc. "Our relationship with Syngenta started in 2003 and they became a shareholder in connection with our IPO in 2004. We see Syngenta's willingness to transfer this technology improvement, in return for our share purchase warrants, as a demonstration of their confidence in our ability to execute on our business plan using our plant-based pharmaceutical platform."

The agreement specifically provides SemBioSys with a license to Syngenta's proprietary safflower transformation technology including all of Syngenta's improvements to safflower transformation and propagation as they apply to plant-made pharmaceuticals and other SemBioSys products. SemBioSys also acquires information related to the safflower genome sequence and structure.

In November 2003, SemBioSys entered into a Technology License-Option Agreement with Syngenta Participations AG. The current transaction provides SemBioSys with access to various technologies and assets developed by Syngenta under the Technology License-Option Agreement.

Calgary, Alberta-based SemBioSys Genetics Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on the development, commercialization and production of biopharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceutical products based on its plant genetic engineering skills and proprietary oilbody-oleosin technology platform – the Stratosome(TM) Biologics System. Its two lead pharmaceutical product candidates are insulin and a developmental cardiovascular drug called Apo AI. It also has a series of non-pharmaceutical products addressing animal and aquaculture health, nutritional oils and human topical markets. SemBioSys currently has funded partnership agreements with Martek Biosciences Corporation, Lonza Inc. and Arcadia Biosciences, Inc.