Contacts:
Rick Pierce Douglas MacDougall
V.P., Finance & Investor Relations Chris Erdman
SafeScience, Inc. Feinstein Kean Healthcare
(617) 422-0674 (617) 577-8110
www.safescience.com www.fkhealth.com
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY APPROVES CONDITIONAL
REGISTARATION OF ELEXA-4(R)FROM SAFESCIENCE
SAFESCIENCE ANTICIPATES ACTIVE MARKETING OF PLANT DEFENSE BOOSTER FOR THE
2001 GROWING SEASON
BOSTON, MA, OCTOBER 20, 2000-- SafeScience, Inc., (Nasdaq, SAFS), announced
today that the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of
Pesticide Programs, Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division has granted
conditional approval of its Elexa-4 Plant Defense Booster. Elexa-4 is a
non-toxic, Plant Defense Booster that helps protect grapes, strawberries and a
wide variety of other crops from pathogens such as powdery mildew, boytritis and
gray mold. Elexa stimulates the plant's own natural defense system to defend
against attack by these diseases.
"Elexa-4 addresses large and important agricultural markets and we are very
pleased by the conditional EPA approval for Elexa-4," stated Richard Daoust,
Ph.D. Vice President of Agriculture of SafeScience. "While we will initially
focus our sales efforts for Elexa-4 on high-value crops such as grapes,
strawberries, cherries, and roses in the United States, Elexa-4 has been
approved for use on a variety of both commercial high-value and commodity crops
such as tree fruits, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and greenhouse and nursery
plants."
"We have filed for state registration in California and will now file
registrations for Elexa-4 in other states. Subject to receiving state
registration SafeScience can begin sales of Elexa-4. SafeScience will be filing
additional information to comply with the EPA registration process to obtain
full approval, which it expects to receive within six months. "We anticipate
actively marketing Elexa-4 for the Spring 2001 growing season," continued Dr.
Daoust. "Elexa-4 has been produced in commercial scale and the finished product
is being held in inventory for sale pending final state registration approvals.
The product will be priced competitively with other registered chemical and
biological pest control solutions and is easily manufactured and scaleable."
Elexa-4 is considered "exempt from tolerance" by the EPA, which means that it
does not leave chemical residues on fruit or foliage. Elexa-4's exempt status
allows it to be applied up to and on the day of harvest unlike conventional
pesticides that must be discontinued weeks in advance. Elexa has been and
continues to be field tested on a variety of crops in the United States and in
-more-
<PAGE>
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other countries against important commercial diseases such as powdery mildew,
downey mildew, gray mold and other diseases. Several research trials show Elexa
to be as effective against certain important commercial diseases as currently
used traditional commercial chemical fungicides. Additional field trials are
ongoing.
Elexa-4 was recently cited in two trade journals, the January 2000 edition of
The Grape Grower, Magazine of the Western Grape Industry and the May 2000
edition of the American Fruit Grower. Both publications discuss the scope of the
Food Quality Protection Act and the fact that current concerns with chemical
resistance by pests to commonly used toxic pesticides are changing the methods
U.S. growers use to control these pests. This regulatory and political
environment makes newly approved products like Elexa-4 potentially important
components of many growers' future pest control programs.
According to published literature, the worldwide market for products targeted
towards prevention and treatment of plant fungal diseases is approximately six
billion dollars.
SAFESCIENCE
SafeScience develops and licenses pharmaceutical, agricultural and consumer
products. The Company's human therapeutic products include GBC-590, a unique
compound to treat cancer, which is in Phase II human clinical trials, as well
as, an antifungal compound, CAN-296, in pre-clinical development for potential
treatment of human fungal infections. In the area of agriculture, SafeScience
has received conditional U.S. EPA approval of Elexa-4(R) Plant Defense Booster,
an innovative compound which stimulates the plant to protect itself against
pathogens. SafeScience has filed for state registration of Elexa in California
and will now begin the process of registering it in several U.S. states.
SafeScience's line of consumer and commercial products are being marketed under
the SafeScience(R) brand as an alternative to conventional products employing
potentially harmful chemicals. Further information is available on SafeScience's
web site: http://www.safescience.com.
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SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
Any statements contained in this release that relate to future plans, events or
performance are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties,
including, but not limited to, risks of product nonapproval or product
development and market acceptance risks, the impact of competitive products and
pricing, the results of current and future licensing and other collaborative
relationships, the results of financing efforts, developments regarding
intellectual property rights and litigation, and other risks identified in the
Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Actual results, events or
performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue
reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as the date
hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the results of
any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect
events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of
unanticipated events.
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