Briarwood Investment Counsel Initiates Coverage of Biosite Diagnostics.

JERICHO, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 31, 1998--Briarwood Investment Counsel announced today it has initiated coverage of Biosite Diagnostics Inc. (NASDAQ:BSTE) with a Buy recommendation and a 12 month target price of $16 per share.

Biosite is a growing provider of point of care diagnostic test kits for the rapid diagnosis of drugs of abuse, heart attacks and certain disease causing bacteria.

According to Kenneth Gatz and Dean Petkanas an oversold condition exists in the shares of Biosite primarily due to:

The sale by Merck KGaA of 1,190,000 shares of Biosite Stock during the period of April 22 to May 6. We believe that Merck's decision to sell its stake in Biosite was based on factors unrelated to Biosite.

The filing on April 23, 1998 by Spectral Diagnostics of a patent infringement suit against Biosite.

We believe the recent selling off of Biosite's stock was carried out by investors who most likely coupled the timing of these two events thus exacerbating the decline inthe stock price of Biosite shares.

Spectral Diagnostic's motion seeking an injunction against Biosite was denied by the court on July 16, 1998. Trial scheduled for late August. Based on our review of the court filings, we believe that there will be a favorable outcome for Biosite in its defense of the litigation with Spectral.

-- Two competitors, Biosite and Spectral, are competing for a majority of the market share in a strong niche segment of point of care rapid diagnostic testing. The two companies have designed tests to provide simultaneous measurement of three cardiac markers in a whole blood sample, which are indicative of the occurrence of a heart attack. We believe Biosite has a significant edge over Spectral based on its ability to provide quantitative results and its existing reach into 45% of all U.S. hospitals.

-- The estimates of the costs associated with diagnosis/detection/ruling out of the cardiac event known as acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) have been placed at approximately $4 billion, annually. We estimate Biosite's share of this market at .5% (one-half of one percent) of market projections on first year TCP sales or roughly $20 million.

Briarwood Investment Counsel is a full service investment banking and brokerage firm that delivers financial services to emerging growth companies. For information regarding this press release please contact Ken Gatz or Dean Petkanas at 516-876-0160.

    CONTACT: Briarwood Investment Counsel, Jericho
              Ken Gatz or Dean Petkanas
              516/876-0160