Bio-Plexus and Owens & Minor Sign Distribution Agreement.

Business Editors and Health/Medical Writers

VERNON, Conn.--(BW HealthWire)--Jan. 6, 2000

Bio-Plexus, Inc. (NASDAQ:BPLX) today announced a distribution agreement with Owens & Minor, a major distributor of medical products to hospitals nationwide. The agreement is another clear indicator of increased customer demand for Punctur-Guard products.

"At a time where medical distributors are focused on reducing their numbers of vendors, Owens & Minor has added Bio-Plexus products to its offerings. This is the result of growing sales volume, an increased customer base and customer demand," said Thomas K. Sutton, Executive Vice President at Bio-Plexus. "The addition of Punctur-Guard products is significant because it is another key indicator of the market's growing recognition of the strength of Punctur-Guard safety needle technologies.

"Continuing the positive trend of safety regulation, New Jersey's safety needle bill was signed into law this week by Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Passage of the bill shows New Jersey's clear agreement with the spirit of the federal OSHA regulation issued in November. The regulation mandates the use of safety needles nationwide, requiring all health care employers to provide the most effective safety needle devices to their employees," Sutton continued. "Purchasing the safest available device with the strongest unbiased proof of efficacy not only protects health care workers from suffering accidental needlesticks, but it protects employers on the regulatory front," he said.

With the passage of the New Jersey legislation, Johnson & Johnson Medical (NYSE: JNJ) announced that it "will be introducing the PROTECTIV (TM) ACUVANCE (TM) I.V. Safety Catheter, the first catheter with a completely passive, self-blunting safety mechanism, in early 2000." The new catheter features Bio-Plexus self-blunting safety technology - the result of a licensing, development, and royalty agreement between Bio-Plexus and Johnson & Johnson begun in 1997.

"Growing product exposure and distribution channels, the national mandate for safe needles, and Johnson & Johnson's recently announced introduction of the Bio-Plexus designed catheter all point to the fact that Bio-Plexus is in a strong and critical period of growth," Sutton concluded.

Owens & Minor (NYSE: OMI), a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is the nation's largest distributor of national brand medical/surgical supplies. The company's distribution centers serve hospitals, integrated healthcare systems and group purchasing organizations nationwide.

Bio-Plexus, Inc. (NASDAQ: BPLX), designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and holds U.S. and international patents on safety medical needles and other products under the PUNCTUR-GUARD(R), DROP-IT(R) and PUNCTUR-GUARD REVOLUTION (TM) brand names. In studies by the Centers for Disease Control (January 1997) and ECRI, (Health Devices, June 1998 and October 1999) Punctur-Guard needles ranked highest of all devices studied. Accidental needlesticks number about one million per year in the United States and can result in the transmission of deadly diseases including HIV and Hepatitis B and C.

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