Akkadix Corporation announced today that Dr. Arthur B. Laffer, previously a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board has joined the Company’s Board of Directors.

Dr. Laffer is the founder and Chairman of Laffer Associates, an economic research and financial consulting firm headquartered in San Diego, California. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Laffer Investments, an institutional money management firm.

"I look forward to working with Akkadix in utilizing their science and skills in providing alternative manufacturing solutions to the vast chemical, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical industry," says Laffer. "Plant biology has been an interest of mine for many years and I am anxious to contribute in this area."

Dr. Laffer's economic acumen and influence in triggering a worldwide tax-cutting movement in the 1980s have earned him the distinction in many publications as "The Father of Supply-Side Economics."

"I have had the opportunity to interact many times with Dr. Laffer over the past year and am pleased he has agreed to join our board" says Gary H. Richardson, President & CEO of Akkadix. "His insight and experience will be an invaluable asset as we move forward in building Akkadix."

Dr. Laffer has been widely acknowledged for his economic achievements. Recently he was noted in Time Magazine's March 29, 1999, cover story "The Century's Greatest Minds" for inventing the Laffer Curve, which it deemed one of "a few of the advances that powered this extraordinary century". He was listed in "A Dozen Who Shaped the '80s," in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 1, 1990, and in "A Gallery of the Greatest People Who Influenced Our Daily Business," in the Wall Street Journal on June 23, 1989. His creation of the Laffer Curve was deemed a "memorable event" in financial history by the Institutional Investor in its July 1992 Silver Anniversary issue, "The Heroes, Villains, Triumphs, Failures and Other Memorable Events

Dr. Laffer was formerly the Distinguished University Professor at Pepperdine University and a member of the Pepperdine Board of Directors. He was also the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Business Economics at the University of Southern California, as well as an Associate Professor of Business Economics at the University of Chicago. Dr. Laffer was also a consultant to Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and then the first to hold the title of Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under George Shultz.

Dr. Laffer presently sits on the Board of Directors of a number of public and private companies including Nicholas-Applegate Mutual Funds, MasTec (NYSE) Neff Corporation (NYSE), Oxigene Inc. (Nasdaq), PacifiCare Health Systems (Nasdaq) and Vivendi Environment. Dr. Laffer received a B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1963 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 1972.