Sigma-Aldrich and Sangamo BioSciences Announce the Achievement of Key Throughput Milestone in Research Reagents...( Milestone Achieved A Year Ahead of Sc...)

Milestone Achieved A Year Ahead of Schedule

ST. LOUIS and RICHMOND, Calif., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGMO) today announced it has reached a major production capacity milestone as part of its agreement with Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (Nasdaq: SIAL) to commercialize zinc finger nuclease reagents (ZFNs) for research applications. The milestone triggers a payment of $1.0 million to Sangamo.

"Reaching this production milestone more than one year ahead of schedule represents an important step in our plans to develop high value ZFN research reagents for our customers," said Dr. David Smoller, President of Sigma-Aldrich's Research Biotech Business Unit. "Our CompoZr(TM) ZFN platform of reagents has captured the interest of the biotechnology research community. CompoZr reagents provide researchers with the ability to target and precisely manipulate the genome of living cells, resulting in cell lines or whole organisms with defined gene deletions, insertions, or corrections. ZFNs can be designed to target any gene in any organism and used to rapidly make precise changes to a cell's characteristics. Our aim is to provide CompoZr reagents to any investigator's 'favorite gene'. As the exclusive licensee and distributor of ZFN-based reagents for research purposes, we are pleased with Sangamo's robust and scalable approach that is helping us meet the high demand for ZFN reagents."

The ability to selectively modify or control specific genes is emerging as a critical tool in modern biotechnology. Zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) are the dominant class of naturally-occurring transcription factors in organisms from yeast to humans. Transcription factors, which are found in the nucleus of
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