Myriad Genetics And Kaiser Permanente Sign Agreement For Breast Cancer Testing

8.6 Million Kaiser Permanente Members to Have Access to Breast Cancer Test

Salt Lake City, UT
February 15, 2000

Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MYGN) announced today that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Kaiser Permanente to provide its BRACAnalysis® breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility test to the healthcare provider's patients. Under the agreement, Kaiser Permanente will offer Myriad's BRACAnalysis® test, for patients throughout their system who meet the criteria for testing for hereditary risk of breast or ovarian cancer.

Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, California, serves the healthcare needs of over 8 million Americans in 11 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, Kaiser Permanente includes over 10,000 physicians representing all specialties. BRACAnalysis® test information will be used by Kaiser Permanente to provide improved healthcare management of their patients. The information empowers women to take the most appropriate steps to protect their health and diminish the likelihood of breast and ovarian cancers.

"We are pleased that Kaiser Permanente is taking this step to provide women at risk of developing cancer with access to a test that can save their lives," said Gregory Critchfield, M.D., President of Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc. "Kaiser Permanente's adoption of the BRACAnalysis® test highlights the great value that the test provides to healthcare management organizations, as well as to their physicians in making important healthcare decisions with the patients they represent." Myriad/Kaiser Permanente

Mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are responsible for raising a woman's risk of breast cancer from approximately 2% to 59% by age 50, and to approximately 87% over her lifetime. Her ovarian cancer risk increases from less than 1% to nearly 40% by age 50. By establishing a woman's increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, physicians and their patients can make therapeutic choices aimed at preventing these diseases. In addition, by creating a customized surveillance program, cancer is most likely to be detected at the earliest possible stage, when the patient survival rate is at its highest.

Kaiser Permanente joins leading insurers and health management organizations such as Aetna US Healthcare and Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield that have taken the lead in providing coverage for state-of-the-art medical diagnostic services to their members. The addition of Myriad's BRACAnalysis® test to the covered services provided to their members acknowledges the importance of the management of breast and ovarian cancer risk to women's health.

Kaiser Permanente is America's leading non-profit integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, it is a pre-paid, group-practice program with headquarters in Oakland, Calif. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of 8.6 million members in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Today, it encompasses Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and subsidiaries, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and the Permanente Medical Groups, as well as an affiliation with Group Health Cooperative, based in Seattle. Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente includes about 90,000 technical, administrative and clerical employees and about 10,000 physicians representing all specialties.

Myriad Genetics, Inc. is an emerging biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapeutic and diagnostic products that are based on the use of genomic and proteomic technologies. The Company has established two wholly owned subsidiaries -- Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which develops and markets Myriad Genetics/Kaiser Permanente therapeutic compounds, and Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc., which develops and markets proprietary molecular diagnostic services and has introduced products in the fields of predictive medicine and personalized medicine. The Company has established strategic alliances with Bayer, Eli Lilly, Monsanto, Novartis, Roche, Schering AG and Schering-Plough.

Note to Editors: This and other recent releases are available on Myriad's website at www.myriad.com . The discussion in this news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Such statements are based on management's current expectations that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth or implied by forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the timely implementation by the Company of its plan to prepare its computer systems for the year 2000, the cost to the Company of such implementation, and the timely conversion by other parties on which the Company's business relies; intense competition related to the discovery of disease-related genes; uncertainties as to the extent of future government regulation of the Company's business, uncertainties as to whether the Company and its collaborators will be successful in developing, and obtaining regulatory approval for, and commercial acceptance of, therapeutics based on the discovery of disease-related genes and proteins; uncertainties as to the Company's ability to develop therapeutic lead compounds, which is a new business area for the Company; and the risk that markets will not exist for therapeutic lead compounds that the Company develops or if such markets exist, that the Company will not be able to sell compounds, which it develops, at acceptable prices.