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NEWS

Additional milestones reached by Exelixis in joint venture with Bayer

South San Francisco, California
August 29,  2001

Exelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL) today announced that it has achieved additional milestones in its collaboration with Bayer’s crop protection division through the delivery of assays by their joint venture, Genoptera LLC. The delivery of these assays triggers undisclosed milestone payments to Exelixis.

"Through the utilization of Exelixis’ broad based technology platform, the Genoptera joint venture has yielded numerous unique, highly validated targets and assays," stated George A. Scangos, president and chief executive officer of Exelixis. "We are pleased with our continued success in the discovery and delivery of quality targets to our partner, as well with the progress through Bayer’s ultra high throughput screening systems of previously accepted targets and assays."

Formed in January 2000, Genoptera LLC focuses on the discovery of novel insecticides and nematicides. The joint venture is a continuation and expansion of the collaboration that Exelixis and Bayer initially established in April 1998 and expanded in June 1999. In addition to $80 million in committed research funding over the course of the eight-year joint venture, the arrangement involves a $20 million up-front payment and performance-based milestone and royalty payments to Exelixis. Bayer has the exclusive right to commercialize insecticides based on technology developed by Genoptera.

Exelixis, Inc. is a leading worldwide genomics-based drug discovery company focused on product development through its expertise in comparative genomics and model system genetics. An outstanding team of company scientists has developed multiple fungal, nematode, insect, plant and vertebrate genetic systems. Exelixis’ proprietary model systems and comparative genomics technologies address gene function by using biologically relevant functional genomics information very early on in the process to rapidly, efficiently and cost-effectively translate sequence data to knowledge about the function of genes and the proteins that they encode. The company has a significant internal cancer discovery and drug development program, through which a number of compounds are expected to complete screening by the end of the year. Exelixis believes that its technology is broadly applicable to all life science industries including pharmaceutical, diagnostic, agricultural biotechnology and animal health and the company has active partnerships with Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia Corporation, Protein Design Labs and Dow AgroSciences.

Company news release
N3762

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