WaferGen Receives Notice of US Patent Allowance for SmartChip™ and ICELL8™ Single-Cell Methods and Systems to Process Genetic Material from Multi-well Arrays

FREMONT, Calif., June 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WaferGen Bio-systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: WGBS) today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for U.S. Patent Application 14/075,631, with both method and system claims to extract liquids containing single cell Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) libraries from multi-well arrays. With the allowance of this application, WaferGen now owns five total issued patents, and two allowed applications, that cover multiple key attributes of the Company's technology.

This allowance significantly strengthens the claims of the core family of patents which support WaferGen's products and applications. It enables the ability to uniquely extract discrete reactions performed in the nanowells. This step is a key differentiator which makes WaferGen's technology very cost-effective and user-friendly by allowing the reactions from thousands of individual nanowells to be processed in a single tube.

The allowance provides a solid foundation for the recently launched ICELL8 Single-Cell System and existing SmartChip Target Enrichment systems. The ICELL8 Single-Cell System is a first of its kind system for processing thousands of single cells for downstream analysis, including NGS. The system has the potential to accelerate research in cancer, neuroscience, stem cells and immunology which could uncover discoveries leading to clinical single-cell applications. The SmartChip Target Enrichment System is currently used in multiple clinical research applications, such as detection of gene variations which affect responses to drugs and identification of mutation changes associated with multiple cancers, using NGS.

"The allowance of this patent protects a key step in WaferGen's workflow and addresses a key challenge of recovering material from nanowells," commented Maithreyan Srinivasan, CTO of WaferGen BioSystems. "Our additional filings of 20 U.S. and international patent applications related to single-cell analysis using the SmartChip technology, including single-cell capture, dispensing, counting, visualizing, and analysis, is expected to further bolster WaferGen's position as a large-scale single cell analysis leader."

About WaferGen

WaferGen Bio-systems, Inc. is a biotechnology company that offers innovative genomic technology solutions for single-cell analysis and clinical research. The ICELL8™ Single-Cell System is a first of its kind system that can isolate thousands of single cells and processes specific cells for analysis, including NGS. The system has demonstrated unbiased isolation of single cells from solid tumors, brain cells, pulmonary airway cells, and multiple cell lines. The SmartChip™ platform can be used for profiling and validating molecular biomarkers, and can perform massively-parallel singleplex PCR for one-step target enrichment and library preparation for clinical NGS. The Apollo 324™ system can be used to process DNA and RNA from clinical samples to NGS-ready libraries. These technologies offer a powerful set of tools for biological analysis at the molecular and single-cell level in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, and clinical laboratory industries. WaferGen recently announced a merger agreement with Takara Bio Inc. (TSE: 4974), a leading Japanese and global biotechnology and life science reagents company, which is expected to close in March of 2017.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the "safe harbor" created by those sections. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as "believe," "expect," "may," "will," "should," "could," "seek," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "anticipate" or other comparable terms. Forward-looking statements in this press release may address the following subjects among others: statements regarding the closing of the merger agreement with Takara Bio Inc., sufficiency of our capital resources, expected operating losses, expected revenues, expected expenses, expected cash usage, our expectations regarding our development of future products including single cell analysis technologies and our expectations concerning our competitive position and business strategy. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, as a result of various factors including those risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors and in Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations sections of our most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We urge you to consider those risks and uncertainties in evaluating our forward-looking statements. We caution readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as otherwise required by the federal securities laws, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to publicly release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein (or elsewhere) to reflect any change in our expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Investor Contact:

Rollie Carlson
[email protected]
510-277-3417

SOURCE WaferGen Bio-systems, Inc.

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