Corning Receives Antitrust Clearance for NetOptix Merger.

Business Editors

CORNING, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 4, 2000

Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) and NetOptix Corporation (Nasdaq:OPTX) announced that the U.S. government's statutory 30-day Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust review waiting period has expired. The merger remains subject to other regulatory steps before closing, including review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Corning announced February 14 that it had agreed to acquire NetOptix Corporation of Sturbridge, MA, a manufacturer of thin film filters for use in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) components, for approximately $2 billion in stock.

NetOptix Corporation is headquartered in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Its subsidiaries, Optical Filter Corporation and OFC GmbH design, manufacture and market optical filters for DWDM applications in fiber-optic networks. OFC has an optical filter manufacturing facility in Natick, MA and a diamond turning facility in Keene, NH. More information on the company is available at www.netoptix.com.

Established in 1851, Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) creates leading-edge technologies for the fastest-growing markets of the world's economy. Corning manufactures optical fiber, cable and photonic products for the telecommunications industry; and high-performance displays and components for television and other communications-related industries. The company also uses advanced materials to manufacture products for scientific, semiconductor and environmental markets. Corning's revenues for 1999 were $4.7 billion.