VaxyGen Assay Services Selects Charleston SCRA/MUSC Innovation Center as Operations Headquarters

CHARLESTON, SC – August 22, 2011 –SCRA today announced its newest tenant company, VaxyGen Assay Services. The company will lease space in the SCRA Medical University of South Carolina Innovation Center located in Charleston, SC for both laboratory and business operations.

VaxyGen Assay Services provides contract custom testing services to the biopharmaceutical and vaccine industry as well as research/development organizations to characterize the active components and their effects in developing therapeutics and vaccines. The company’s client base includes multinational biopharmaceutical and vaccine companies.

Leading the company is CEO is David Dodd, an experienced executive who has served as CEO of major pharmaceutical and life science companies such as Solvay, BioReliance Corporation, and Serologicals. Dodd has also held executive leadership positions at Wyeth, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories. In 2009, Dodd formed RiversEdge BioVentures, an investment and acquisition company,based in Beaufort, SC.

The successful development of life-enhancing vaccines and biopharmaceutical therapies is highly dependent on the ability to biologically characterize the active components of each potential product. This requires highly intricate assays, custom developed for each specific project, said Dodd.

VaxyGen Assay Services has the expertise and experience to ensure that such potential products are appropriately characterized in order for their development programs to successfully proceed. Having reviewed and evaluated various alternatives to establishing the location for our business operations, we have been most impressed with the support we’ve received from the SCRA team and the impressive facilities and resources available at the SCRA MUSC Innovation Center. This facility and, in general, the
resources within the MUSC/Charleston area are highly impressive and a tremendous asset to the life sciences area and, in particular, our company.

The SCRA MUSC Innovation Center is the first of three high-tech facilities that SCRA has built in conjunction with its university and civic partners in South Carolina to grow the Knowledge Economy.

With these Centers, SCRA has fulfilled legislative requirements identified in the Innovation Centers Act, which focused on the commercialization of new knowledge-based discoveries.

We are delighted to welcome VaxyGen Assay Services to the Innovation Center and as a member of South Carolina’s Knowledge Economy, said SCRA CEO Bill Mahoney. It is companies like VaxyGen that are continuing to add quality jobs to the economy and bring excellent technologies and services to market.

SCRA was chartered by the State over 27 years ago as a non-stock, tax-exempt corporation. At its establishment, the State capitalized SCRA with approximately $500,000 and 1,400 acres of undeveloped land in order to develop a technology-based Knowledge Economy in South Carolina. Since that time, SCRA has generated its own revenues, contributed over $13 billion to the state’s economy and helped create over 15,000 technology-related jobs in South Carolina.

About SCRA
SCRA is a global leader in applied research and commercialization services with its headquarters in South
Carolina. SCRA has a dual mission:

In support of both missions, SCRA builds and manages research facilities that include wet labs, secure
rooms for sensitive work and advanced, high-tech manufacturing shops.