South San Francisco, CA - October 31, 2000 - FibroGen, Inc., will present today on the advantages of its recombinant gelatin at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, IN. The poster entitled "Expression and Characterization of Recombinant Human Gelatin Fragments" will be displayed today between 1:30 and 4:30 in Meeting Hall G and for the duration of the meeting at the FibroGen booth located in the exhibition hall.

"Our engineering efforts have led to the development of a new class of stabilization agents for biologics and vaccines. Through our collaborative research with pharmaceutical companies, we identified the qualities of gelatin that promote stabilization and activity. We can now design gelatins with these specific attributes and thus offer an optimal stabilization and preservation tool to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry," said FibroGen's James W. Polarek, Ph.D., Vice President, Collagen and Gelatin Development. "Additionally, our animal data have demonstrated that our gelatins are not only better drug stabilizers but also provide a safe, well-defined, non-immunogenic replacement for animal-sourced gelatins, the current industry standard."

FibroGen's recombinant technology creates pure, fully characterized, and completely reproducible materials. The availability of synthetic versions of authentic human collagen and gelatins has been long-desired by pharmaceutical and medical device companies anxious to eliminate the issues associated with the use of bovine- and porcine-derived products, such as unacceptable endotoxin levels and exposure to pathogenic bacteria and viruses.

FibroGen, Inc., has leveraged its expertise in extracellular matrix biology by achieving the only commercially viable method known to produce human collagen and human gelatin in recombinant systems. FibroGen will exploit this technology by becoming both a bulk product supplier for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries as well as a developer and commercializer of injectable products, wound management products, and gelatin stabilizers. Additionally, FibroGen has unique therapeutic programs focusing on the development of therapies to treat fibrosis, excessive scarring, tissue regeneration, and fibroproliferative disorders including angiogenesis and squamous cell carcinoma.

FibroGen's corporate collaborations include a partnership with Taisho Pharmaceutical Company of Japan to discover and develop human monoclonal antibody therapeutics for renal fibrosis and chronic transplant rejection, as well as a joint collaboration with ZymoGenetics, a unit of Novo Nordisk, for the development of fully recombinant hemostats and resorbable tissue sealants utilizing FibroGen's recombinant Type III collagen. Additionally, FibroGen has over 20 active agreements with leading pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers for development or feasibility testing of the Company's recombinant human collagens or gelatin as replacement components for animal-sourced materials within in-market and R&D stage products.

Customers interested in purchasing FibroGen's products should log-on to FibroGen's website at www.fibrogen.com and select "Reagents." Customers without web access may contact the Company's Reagent Sales Customer Service Department at 1 800-720-7203. FibroGen's current products are intended for laboratory research purposes only and are not to be used in humans.