EXHIBIT 99.1



LYNX SELLS AMIDATE OLIGONUCLEOTIDE PATENT ESTATE TO GERON

Hayward, CA

March 6, 2002

Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX) announced today that it has sold its
intellectual property rights under the N3'-P5' phosphoramidate patent estate to
Geron Corporation. Lynx will receive approximately $2.5 million in a combination
of cash and stock from Geron for the direct sale of the Lynx patent estate.

The agreement with Geron covers the sale of a family of important patents
covering process and compositional matter claims related to oligonucleotides
containing phosphoramidate backbone linkages. N3'-P5' phosphoramidate
oligonucleotides are an important class of compounds being investigated for
their use as therapeutic and diagnostic agents, as well as in other commercial
applications. N3'-P5' phosphoramidate oligonucleotides have potential in a broad
range of applications, including antisense and antigene therapeutic drug
discovery and target validation. "Lynx is focused on expanding the commercial
applications of its genomics and proteomics technologies," said Norrie Russell,
Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Lynx. "We believe that this was
an excellent opportunity to realize value from the amidate patent portfolio
developed earlier in our history."

Lynx is a leader in the development and application of novel technologies for
the discovery of gene expression patterns and genomic variations important to
the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agricultural industries. These
technologies are based on the Megaclone(TM) technology, Lynx's unique and
proprietary cloning procedure, which transforms a sample containing millions of
DNA molecules into one made up of millions of micro-beads, each of which carries
approximately 100,000 copies of one of the DNA molecules in the sample.
Megaclone(TM) technology is the foundation for Lynx's analytical applications,
including: Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing, or MPSS(TM), technology,
which provides gene sequence information and high-resolution gene expression
data; Megasort(TM) technology, which provides differentially expressed gene
sets; and Megatype(TM) technology, which provides single nucleotide
polymorphism, or SNP, disease- or trait-association information. Lynx is also
developing a proteomics technology, Protein ProFiler(TM), which is expected to
provide high-resolution analysis of complex mixtures of proteins from cells or
tissues. For more information, visit Lynx's web site at www.lynxgen.com.

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, including statements
related to the expansion of the Company's commercial applications of its
technologies. Any statements contained in this press release that are not
statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements.
Words such as "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "predicts," "expects,"
"estimates," "intends," "will," "continue," "may," "potential," "should,"
"confident" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking
statements. There are a number



of important factors that could cause the results of Lynx to differ materially
from those indicated by these forward-looking statements, including, among
others, risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including
its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000 and its most
recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Lynx does not undertake any obligation to
update forward-looking statements.

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