Carlsbad, California, February 26, 2009 – Helixis, Inc., developer of nucleic acid analysis tools, announced today that Jay Flatley, CEO of Illumina, Inc., has joined the company’s board of directors. Under Flatley’s leadership Illumina has become the market leader in genotyping and next-generation sequencing systems, and has completed numerous strategic technology acquisitions. Recognizing the company’s record of growth, Forbes magazine recently named Illumina to its 2009 list of “25 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies in the United States”.

“Jay is highly respected in the life science industry and has a comprehensive understanding of the market and customer segments that Helixis will serve with our unique instrument platforms,” said Alex Dickinson, CEO of Helixis. “In particular he brings a strong background in operating management, which will be invaluable as we launch our first commercial product.”

Flatley’s previous experience includes senior management positions at a number of instrument and technology companies. Prior to joining Illumina, he was president and CEO of Molecular Dynamics, now part of GE Healthcare, and led that company’s initial public offering in 1993.

“I am impressed with the breadth of experience of the Helixis management team, which includes significant accomplishments developing and commercializing real time PCR systems and diagnostic platforms,” said Flatley. “I believe that the Helixis technologies will provide a significant new performance benchmark for the rapidly expanding applications in genetic analysis validation.”

Flatley holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Claremont McKenna College and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University. He is also a member of the board of directors for Illumina and GenVault Corporation and the Keck Graduate Institute board of trustees.

Helixis, headquartered in Carlsbad, California, develops innovative nucleic acid tools for research and clinical diagnostics applications. The privately held company was founded in 2007 through a unique collaboration between molecular biologists and engineers in the labs of Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, Ph.D., and Axel Scherer, Ph.D., at the California Institute of Technology. Helixis is currently developing a new generation of high-performance, low-cost, real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) systems. For more information, visit www.helixis.com.