Telles Receives FDA Clearance for Mirel™ F1005 and F1006 Injection Molding Bioplastic Materials for Use in Food Contact Applications

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX) and Archer Daniels Midland Company today announced that Telles received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for the formulated products Mirel™ F1005 and F1006, food contact injection molding grades for use in food contact applications. The FDA accepted the submitted Telles notification, and clearance is effective as of May 11, 2010.

“With the Clinton plant now in operation, and this FDA clearance, we now can move forward with brand owners’ requests to use Mirel in their injection molded food packaging applications”

Mirel F1005 and F1006 grades are now cleared for use in non-alcoholic food contact applications. The conditions of use range from frozen food storage to boiling water up to 212°F, including microwave reheating. Mirel is suitable for a wide range of injection molded food service and packaging applications including caps and closures, and disposable items such as forks, spoons, knives, tubs, trays, and hot cup lids. The clearance also includes products such as house-wares, cosmetics and medical packaging.

“With the Clinton plant now in operation, and this FDA clearance, we now can move forward with brand owners’ requests to use Mirel in their injection molded food packaging applications,” stated Richard Eno, CEO of Metabolix. “These applications, which currently consume billions of pounds of petroleum-based polymers per year, offer considerable opportunity for growth of our biobased, biodegradable polymer, Mirel.”

Telles engaged Intertek to help develop the full dossier for this food notification submission. Intertek is a leading provider of quality and safety solutions serving a wide range of industries around the world.

About Mirel Bioplastics

Mirel is a family of bioplastic materials that have the physical properties of petroleum-based resins, but are biobased and biodegradable in natural soil and water environments, in home composting systems, and in industrial composting facilities where such facilities are available. The rate and extent of Mirel’s biodegradability will depend on the size and shape of the articles made from it. However, like nearly all bioplastics and organic matter, Mirel is not designed to biodegrade in conventional landfills.

Commercial grades of Mirel are available for injection molding, cast sheet, thermoforming, and film applications. Telles is the joint venture between Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland Company that is commercializing Mirel bioplastics. The first commercial-scale plant is located adjacent to the ADM wet corn mill in Clinton, Iowa. For more information please visit www.mirelplastics.com.

About Metabolix

Founded in 1992, Metabolix, Inc. is an innovation-driven bioscience company focused on providing sustainable solutions for the world’s needs for plastics, chemicals and energy. The Company is taking a systems approach, from gene to end product, integrating sophisticated biotechnology with advanced industrial practice. Metabolix is now developing and commercializing Mirel™, a family of high performance bioplastics which are biobased and biodegradable alternatives to many petroleum based plastics. Metabolix is also developing a proprietary platform technology for co-producing plastics, chemicals and energy, from crops such as switchgrass, oilseeds and sugarcane.

For more information, please visit www.metabolix.com. (MBLX-G)

About ADM

Every day, the 28,000 people of Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) turn crops into renewable products that meet the demands of a growing world. At more than 230 processing plants, we convert corn, oilseeds, wheat and cocoa into products for food, animal feed, chemical and energy uses. We operate the world’s premier crop origination and transportation network, connecting crops and markets in more than 60 countries. Our global headquarters is in Decatur, Illinois, and our net sales for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, were $69 billion.

For more information about our Company and our products, visit www.adm.com.

Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release which are not strictly historical statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding expectations for Mirel market demand, constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and are detailed in Metabolix's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Metabolix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.