Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
September 10, 2001

Athenix Corporation, an industrial biotechnology company developing plants and microbes with enhanced genetics capable of creating renewable resources for the Agricultural Chemical, Seed, Feed, Chemical and Biomass industries, announced two key appointments: Dr. Greg Lewis - Vice President Business Development and Cindy Skocik - Director of Finance. Both report to Athenix President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Koziel.

"We are pleased to welcome Cindy Skocik with her significant, broad financial background and Greg Lewis with his strong, international business development expertise in our industry ." says Koziel. "Each adds substantial strength to the management team and they will be instrumental in taking our
world class technology to the market."

Dr. Lewis earned a Ph.D. in Genetics and Plant Breeding from the University of London. He was most recently Managing Director Business and Product Development at DNA Plant Technology Corporation. Previously he held senior management positions for Hopunion USA Inc. and was Hop Research Officer for Carlton and United Breweries Ltd in Melbourne, Australia. He began his career as a plant breeder
at Wye College in Ashford, UK.

Ms. Skocik was CFO at Southern Assisted Living, Inc. Previously she was VP Finance at Coastal Physician Group, Inc. and served as Controller of a publicly-owned high technology company. She began her career at Price Waterhouse. Ms. Skocik is a CPA and holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from West Virginia University.

Athenix is a rapidly growing early-stage industrial biotechnology company developing novel genetic solutions for select input and output 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 novel output traits and their use in the Feed, Chemical, and Biomass industries for improved biomass conversion.