Intrexon Corporation Raises $1 Million For Advancing its Subcellular Tools

BLACKSBURG, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2006--Intrexon Corporation, the leading provider of genetic tools for subcellular research, today announced that it has closed a $1 million round of financing for the advancement of its subcellular tools and related marketing initiatives. The financing was provided by NewVa Capital Partners, LP.

"This financing will enable us to expand our capabilities and offerings in the emerging market for subcellular inhibition tools." said Robert Beech, CEO of Intrexon. NewVa Capital Partners, LP, a regional investment partnership managed by Third Security, LLC, last made an investment in Intrexon in May 2005, which followed an investment by the Virginia Tech Foundation and Carilion Health System in May 2004. "We remain very excited about Intrexon's technology and the cutting-edge genetic tools the company is creating for the research community," stated Tad Fisher, Managing Director of Third Security, LLC.

According to Beech, Intrexon's tools add a critical dimension to the study of kinases and phosphatases, key enzymes of high interest to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Beech commented, "A growing body of research is demonstrating that inhibiting these enzymes in specific subcellular locations can cause vastly different biological effects. This has important implications for understanding sources of disease, plus predicting and avoiding drug toxicity." Thomas Reed, Ph.D., Intrexon's Chief Science Officer added, "Traditional inhibitor tools act on a cell-wide basis and without regard for the importance of subcellular positioning. In essence, the inhibition activity of traditional tools can be on-target but substantially off-location. This raises serious concerns regarding those off-location effects and their potential to cause misleading research results and significant cellular toxicity. Our tools are designed to constrain inhibition effects to pre-determined subcellular compartments, thus allowing researchers to study the relevance of location-dependent effects."

Intrexon has used its previous investment funds to research, develop and validate an initial set of DNA vectors that target selected kinases in primary subcellular locations. These vectors are now available as mDECOY(TM) kits for purchase via the company's online catalog. Funds have also been used to initiate groundbreaking collaborative studies with leading research laboratories. The latest funding round will be used to augment these initial efforts, and expand the mDECOY(TM) product line to include more targets and locations, as well as viral delivery vectors and stable cell-lines. Intrexon is a Blacksburg, VA based company located at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. More information is available at the company's website, www.intrexon.com.

NewVa Capital Partners, LP is a private equity/venture capital enterprise founded in 2004 by Carilion Health System, the Virginia Tech Foundation and Third Security, LLC. The fund makes early stage investments in companies in the NewVa region of southwestern Virginia. More information is available at the fund's website, www.newvafund.com.

Third Security, LLC is an independent private investment and advisory firm formed in 1999 to manage investments in public and private companies. The firm leverages its people, expertise and capital to guide investments and companies to higher levels of performance. More information is available at www.thirdsecurity.com.