Agencourt Bioscience Expands and Relocates to New World-Class Facility; Governor Romney Joins in Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony.

BEVERLY, Mass. -- Agencourt Bioscience Corporation, a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products to the life sciences industry, today celebrated the grand opening of its new corporate headquarters in Beverly, MA. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined Agencourt's 80 employees as well as business associates during the ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house.

"We applaud the success of Agencourt and value their contribution toward further securing our position as a leader in the biotechnology industry," said Governor Mitt Romney. "Massachusetts prides itself on supporting the innovative entrepreneurs who drive economic growth and today's ribbon-cutting ceremony highlights the extraordinary strength of the Commonwealth's biotech sector."

Agencourt's new state-of-the-art facility occupies 30,000 square feet of 500 Cummings Center more than doubling the size of its former facility. A few features of the new cGMP compliant facility include uninterrupted power supply and gas generator back-up allowing complete independence from utility providers and a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) monitoring system to automatically notify facility's management of any equipment malfunction.

"Agencourt is going through a period of tremendous growth and this new location will enable us to better serve our customers, now and in the future. We have designed a world-class facility with unparalleled features," said Brian McKernan, president and CEO of Agencourt. "This past year alone, we have grown exponentially, servicing new customers, sequencing up to 70,000 samples per day and expanding our product line. This is a milestone for Agencourt and we are very excited for the future growth of the company."

Agencourt's move and expansion is being driven by a $27.2 million grant that it received last fall from The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Agencourt is one of five NHGRI-funded Large-Scale Sequencing Centers whose goal is to sequence genomes of organisms of high biomedical importance. This significant award, combined with Agencourt's growing genomic-sequencing contract business and reagent product line, required the company to move to a much larger facility. Agencourt's employment is also expected to grow to 100 people by the end of 2004 based on both the grant and the success of its business lines.

About Agencourt Bioscience Corporation

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation is a leading provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products in the life sciences market. Our products and services support the advancement of science in understanding biology, improving health and delivering safe and effective treatments for disease.

Agencourt's purification products and services are based on the proven and patented Solid Phase Reversible Immobilization (SPRI(R)) technology, which has been adopted by several of the largest genome research facilities and used to sequence over one-third of the human genome. Agencourt is one of five NHGRI-funded Large-Scale Sequencing Centers whose goal is to sequence genomes of organisms of high biomedical importance. The company's state-of-the-art facilities are guided by the FDA's Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) as a contract analytical laboratory. Agencourt is located in Beverly, Massachusetts. For more information on our company, products and services we invite you to visit our website at www.agencourt.com.