STONY BROOK, N.Y.–()–, Inc. (“Applied DNA”, the “Company”, NASDAQ: APDN), and Nutrition21, LLC (“Nutrition21”), announce the successful implementation of Applied DNA’s CertainT authenticity and traceability solution for Nutrition21’s leading sports supplement ingredient, Nitrosigine^®. After extensive product development, testing and lab-to-production scaleup, both a multi-year Master Services Agreement and a Trademark Licensing Agreement (the “Agreements”) were signed to cover commercial production of Nitrosigine, as well as potential expansion to other products within the Nutrition21 portfolio. Separately, a Broker Agreement was also signed between the parties to enable Nutrition21 to represent Applied DNA’s CertainT platform throughout its extensive network in the dietary supplement market.

“The functional branded ingredient market follows our work in pharmaceuticals, where we believe transparency and trust are key tenets to drive consumer confidence. The CertainT platform provides Nutrition21 proof positive of their ingredients all the way through to their customers’ finished products and onto retail shelves and online stores. CertainT supports Nutrition21’s investment in brand and intellectual property protection for its ingredients and its customers’ final products,” said Dr. James Hayward, president and CEO, Applied DNA.

In the highly competitive dietary supplement industry, Nutrition21 takes brand and intellectual property protection seriously as an industry role model with a significant focus on consumer education and quality. It currently holds over 100 domestic and international issued and pending patents for products. Many support unique claims associated with glucose metabolism, weight management, brain health, cardiovascular health, and sports nutrition, among others.

A success in the Nutrition21 product portfolio, Nitrosigine is the first product covered under the Agreements. Nitrosigine is a bonded arginine-silicate with FDA New Dietary Ingredient notification status, clinically shown to significantly boost nitric oxide levels. Following its introduction to the market, Nitrosigine has since been integrated into over 250 consumer products and is a leading branded ingredient in the pre-workout sports nutrition space.

The CertainT “Tag-Test-Track” platform enables companies and their supply chains to designate a unique molecular identity tag that has meaning specific to the tagged material: for example, geographic facility location, brand, product line or date of manufacture. This tag can be blended into ingredients, packaging inks and varnishes in the pharmaceutical, functional food, and dietary supplements industries. The tag enables its carrier to be verified for authenticity, proper potency of the mixture and blending detection, either at the customer or in the Applied DNA laboratory, depending on application requirements.

“Nutrition21 employs rigorous preclinical and clinical trials as a key part of its product development strategy to ensure product safety and consumer trust. The scientific evidence provided by Applied DNA’s CertainT platform will support these principles with verification of product compliance through the supply chain,” said Bill Levi, Vice President of Operations at Nutrition21.

About Applied DNA Sciences

Applied DNA is a provider of molecular technologies that enable supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting and anti-theft technology, product genotyping and pre-clinical nucleic acid-based therapeutic drug candidates.

Applied DNA makes life real and safe by providing innovative, molecular-based technology solutions and services that can help protect products, brands, entire supply chains, and intellectual property of companies, governments and consumers from theft, counterfeiting, fraud and diversion.

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Common stock listed on NASDAQ under the symbol APDN.

About Nutrition 21

Nutrition21 is a trusted developer and supplier of novel and clinically substantiated branded ingredients for the nutritional supplement industry. With a diverse portfolio of patented health and wellness ingredients, Nutrition21 provides ingredient solutions to some of the most successful dietary supplement brands in the marketplace today.

Nutrition 21 currently holds over 100 domestic and international issued and pending patents for products with highly marketable claims including: Nitrosigine^®, Velositol^®, Chromax^®, nooLVL^®, and Lepidamax^®. Innovative Ingredients. Real Results

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Forward-Looking Statements

The statements made by Applied DNA in this press release may be “forward-looking” in nature within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements describe Applied DNA’s future plans, projections, strategies and expectations, and are based on assumptions and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of Applied DNA. Actual results could differ materially from those projected due to our ability to successfully enter into commercial contracts for the implementation of our CertainT^® platform, the possibility of failure to make timely payment on its outstanding secured convertible notes and resulting enforcement by noteholders of remedies on collateral which includes substantially all of Applied DNA’s assets, the Company’s history of net losses, limited financial resources, limited market acceptance and various other factors detailed from time to time in Applied DNA’s SEC reports and filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on December 12, 2019 and our subsequent quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on February 6, 2020, and other reports we file with the SEC, which are available at . Applied DNA undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date hereof to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, unless otherwise required by law.