Agencourt Appoints John Linnan as Vice President of Sales; Former Applied Biosystems Executive to Lead Agencourt's Expanding Domestic and International Sales Force

Business Wire, April 21, 2004

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

BEVERLY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 21, 2004

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation, a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products to the life sciences industry, today announced the appointment of John Linnan as Vice President of Sales. Mr. Linnan will lead Agencourt's worldwide sales force, which has recently expanded with the addition of three U.S. sales representatives and partnerships with two additional international distributors.

"We are very pleased that John has joined our team," said Brian McKernan, President and CEO of Agencourt. "His experience in the life sciences, as well as his proven ability to lead a strong sales force will be instrumental as Agencourt enters its next phase of growth."

Mr. Linnan brings to Agencourt more than 18 years of sales and marketing experience in the life sciences field. Most recently, he served as the District Sales Manager for New England at Applied Biosystems (ABI), where he managed relationships with the Broad Institute and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Prior to joining ABI, Mr. Linnan worked at Perspective Biosystems as the Regional Sales Manager for New England, mid-Atlantic and Eastern Canada. He was responsible for all aspects of the company's sales management, from key account management to forecasting and business planning. Mr. Linnan has held multiple positions at Abbot Diagnostics, including Sales Specialist, Product Specialist for HIV & Cancer Diagnostics and District Sales Manager for Hematology and Clinical Chemistry. Mr. Linnan holds a BA in Marketing and Management from James Madison University.

About Agencourt Bioscience Corporation

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation is a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products that help biotech and pharmaceutical companies improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their drug development pipelines. Agencourt's Discovery Solutions(TM) suite of genomic and functional genomic services includes high-throughput sequencing, SAGE(TM) sequencing, library construction and SNP discovery. The company's purification products and services are based on the proven and patented Solid Phase Reversible Immobilization (SPRI(TM)) technology, which has been adopted by several of the largest genome research facilities, resulting in more base pairs contributed to GenBank than any other nucleic acid purification technology and used to sequence over one-third of the human genome. Agencourt was recently the sole commercial sequencing provider to be designated by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) as one of five Large-Scale Sequencing Centers. The company has also been confirmed to be operating in compliance with the requirements of the Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) as a contract analytical laboratory. Agencourt is located in Beverly, Massachusetts and is available on the Web at www.agencourt.com.