GTC Biotherapeutics (fka GTCB)

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DEVELOPMENT CAPABILITIES


FRAMINGHAM, MA – April 3, 2007 -- GTC Biotherapeutics, Inc. ("GTC", Nasdaq: GTCB) announced today the expansion of its capabilities in business and commercial development. Ashley Lawton, Ph.D., GTC’s new Vice President of Business Development, will focus primarily on additional strategic partnering for our proprietary programs, including monoclonal antibodies, as well as developing partners for follow-on biologics. Rick Finnegan, GTC’s new Vice President of Commercial Development, will focus on market introduction strategies for our products, including through partners.



“The approval in Europe validates our production technology forATryn® and our portfolio of programs, enabling us to pursue our strategy for partnering and commercializing our products,” stated Geoffrey F. Cox, Ph.D., GTC’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. “I am pleased that executives of the caliber of Ashley Lawton and Rick Finnegan have joined us as we pursue our partnering and commercialization goals.”



Ashley Lawton has over 20 years of business development and management experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in senior positions at Celltech Biologics, Inc., RepliGen Corporation, and Genzyme Corporation. His business development experience includes collaborative partnerships, license agreements, and manufacturing relationships with a wide range of large and small companies. He earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Southampton University in the United Kingdom.



Frederick “Rick” Finnegan has over 20 years of sales, marketing, and therapeutic product launch experience in senior positions at Critical Therapeutics, Genzyme Corporation, and Merck & Co.

His commercial development experience includes the introduction of new products and the expansion of existing products in additional approved indications.



About GTC Biotherapeutics, Inc.

GTC Biotherapeutics develops, produces, and commercializes therapeutic proteins through transgenic animal technology. In August 2006, ATryn®, GTC’s recombinant form of human antithrombin, was approved by the European Commission for use in patients with hereditary antithrombin deficiency undergoing surgical procedures. This was the first approval anywhere in the world of a therapeutic protein produced from a transgenic animal. ATryn® is partnered with LEO Pharma A/S for development and commercialization in Europe, Canada, and the Middle East.



GTC has also recently been granted a patent in the United States through 2021 for the production of any therapeutic protein in the milk of any transgenic mammal. GTC’s transgenic production platform is particularly well suited to enabling cost effective development of proteins that are difficult to express in traditional recombinant production systems as well as those that are required in large volumes. Additional information is available on the GTC web site, http://www.gtc-bio.com.



This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including without limitation statements regarding the prospects for successful business and commercial development activities. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such statements. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties discussed in GTC's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risks and uncertainties associated with the development of therapeutic proteins and dependence upon the actions of partners and regulatory and other governmental agencies. GTC cautions investors not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this release. These statements speak only as of the date of this document, and GTC undertakes no obligation to update or revise the statements, except as may be required by law.

http://www.gtc-bio.com/news.html