May 23, 2001

FOR INFORMATION: Dr. Mervyn Jacobson
(970) 493-3113

MOONDRIFT'S FIRST SEX-SELECTED FOAL: WHAT A STAR

     FORT COLLINS, COLO.--Two-week-old "Star Man," born at historic Moondrift Farm, already wears winning colors-for Fort Collins and XY Inc.
      Star Man's birth signals a major victory in moving specialty equine breeding from the research lab into the commercial arena--where sperm sexing in horses is a potential multimillion-dollar industry.
      Born May 5 at Moondrift Farm, the dark chestnut colt with one white star was produced via low-dose sexed sperm and artificial insemination, a technique developed by XY Inc. researchers in conjunction with Colorado State University.
      Moondrift, a 50-acre farm located in northeast Fort Collins, has been home to groundbreaking horse-breeding operations since 1974. Star Man is the first sex-selected foal to be born at Moondrift, which positions the facility as the leading commercial equine-breeding farm in the world for sex-selected foals.
     " The implications of Star Man's birth for the equine industry and for Fort Collins are enormous," reports Dr. Mervyn Jacobson, XY Inc. CEO. Applications of AI using advanced sperm sorting could be in excess of $300 million a year for the U.S. horse industry alone, he adds. The market outside the U.S. could more than double those projections.
     " The birth of Star Man has put Moondrift Farm in Fort Collins at the forefront of horse breeding designed to select the sex of the foal," Jacobson said. "We're now working with other organizations worldwide to transfer, under appropriate licensing conditions, the technology developed in Fort Collins."
      Star Man's birth signals another first as well. He is the first live foal produced from "fresh-shipped," sorted, low-dose, sperm via artificial insemination. The breakthrough: Even 18-hours after collection and shipment without cooling, delicate equine sperm can be sorted and artificially inseminated to produce a live foal of the desired sex.
     " Not only is Star Man a very handsome colt, he's a 'star' in the world of XY Inc. equine sperm sexing as well," Jacobson says, adding: "In keeping with a contemporary movie classic, 2001: Space Odyssey, Star Man is Moondrift's first 'visitor' in 2001."
      XY Inc. is the only company in the world licensed to pursue sperm sexing, using U.S. Department of Agriculture methods, in such non-human mammals as horses, cattle, pigs and exotic species.
      Using a high-speed cell-sorting machine called a MoFlo, made exclusively by Cytomation also located in Fort Collins, XY Inc. researchers can separate sperm that carry the X chromosome and produce females from sperm that carry the Y chromosome and produce males. High concentrations of sperm with the selected chromosome then are used to fertilize female animals. The sorting procedure does not involve genetic modification in any way - it merely is sorting the male- and female-producing sperm.
      Already, thousands of successful and healthy pregnancies have occurred among livestock worldwide using sperm-sexing methods combined with artificial insemination.
      For more information on XY Inc., call (970) 493-3113 or visit www.xyinc.com.