Celera Genomics' AgGen Business Announces New Developments.

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--March 17, 1999--Celera Genomics announced that Celera AgGen, its agricultural business, has formed a three-year agreement with RhoBio S.A., a joint venture between Rhone Poulenc Agro and Biogemma, to use expression studies to discover genes related to traits of importance in maize. Celera Genomics is a business unit of The Perkin-Elmer Corporation (NYSE:PKN). Celera AgGen will receive royalties from RhoBio resulting from sales of any products developed through this research-based alliance.

In a separate development, Celera announced that AgGen has acquired 49% of the equity of Agrogene, an agricultural DNA testing laboratory in Moissy-Cramayel, France. This investment will enable Celera AgGen to extend its automated DNA sequencing and genotyping services to European agricultural markets.

"We are excited about both these developments," said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., president of Celera Genomics. "They are important steps in our strategy to provide gene expression profiling, gene discovery, and DNA sequencing services to the important field of agricultural genomics."

The Perkin-Elmer Corporation currently comprises three operating divisions. The PE Biosystems Division, with sales of $922 million during fiscal 1998, supplies instrument systems, reagents, software, and related services to the life science industry and research community. Celera Genomics, a newly formed business unit, intends to become the definitive source of genomic and related medical information. The Analytical Instruments Division, which the Company has entered into an agreement to sell, had sales of $609 million during fiscal 1998 and is a leader in supplying a broad range of instruments to the pharmaceutical, environmental, food, chemical, petrochemical, and related industries. Headquartered in Connecticut, Perkin-Elmer had revenues of more than $1.5 billion in fiscal 1998 and employs more than 7,000 people worldwide. Information about Perkin-Elmer is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.perkin-elmer.com or by phoning [phone]. Information about Celera is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.celera.com.

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking. These may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "should," "planned," "estimated," and "potential," among others. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for such forward-looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, the Company notes that a variety of factors could cause actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that may affect the operations, performance, development, and results of the Company's businesses include but are not limited to (1) early stage of operations; (2) no precedent for Celera Genomics' business plan; (3) need to manage rapid growth; (4) uncertainty of successful integration of GenScope and AgGen; (5) uncertainty of sequencing strategy; (6) uncertainty of successful operation of new sequencers and sequencing operations; (7) uncertainty of value of polymorphism data; (8) initial reliance on pharmaceutical industry; (9) anticipated future losses and uncertainty of operating results; (10) high dependence on key employees; (11) uncertain protection of intellectual property and proprietary rights; (12) adverse effect of public disclosure of genomic sequence data; (13) highly competitive business; (14) uncertainty of success of Year 2000 compliance plan; and (15) other factors that might be described from time to time in Perkin-Elmer's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.