Third Wave Announces Appointment of GE Healthcare Executive Christopher Burton as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Third Wave Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:TWTI) today announced the appointment of Christopher Burton as the company’s senior vice president of sales and marketing. Mr. Burton will have overall responsibility for the global sales and marketing of Third Wave’s clinical and research businesses. John Bellano, the company’s vice president of sales, will continue to lead Third Wave’s clinical sales and customer service teams in the Americas. Mr. Burton, 41, brings nearly 20 years of selling and marketing experience to his new role at Third Wave. He joins the company from GE Healthcare, where he was most recently the general manager of sales and marketing for its $200-million maternal and infant care unit. Mr. Burton and his team of more than 80 sales and marketing professionals marketed infant-care-related equipment and software to hospitals in the United States and Canada. The team met or exceeded its revenue goal every year since Mr. Burton became its general manager. Prior to his most recent role at GE Healthcare, Mr. Burton was general manager of more than 75 sales professionals there who sold to 2,500 U.S. hospitals and thousands of physicians’ offices. Mr. Burton and his team grew revenue from that market segment by more than 135%. He joined GE Healthcare in 1993 as a regional sales representative for the company’s monitoring and information systems business unit. He grew sales in his four-state territory by more than 650% during his tenure. Mr. Burton was a sales executive at Isotechnologies Inc., a Hillsborough, N.C.-based diagnostic equipment manufacturer, before he joined GE Healthcare. "Third Wave is very pleased to welcome Chris Burton to the company and our management team,” said Kevin T. Conroy, president and chief executive of Third Wave. "Chris brings a wealth of marketing and selling experience that will be invaluable to the company as we commercialize our HPV products. Chris’ experience in the hospital market will be equally as important as we execute our plan for leadership in molecular diagnostics in that market.” "I am delighted to join Third Wave at this exciting and very significant time in its development,” Mr. Burton said. "I look forward to working with the great team at Third Wave to carry out the company’s strategy for leadership in both the HPV and hospital laboratory markets.” Mr. Burton earned a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University and an executive MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. About Third Wave Technologies Third Wave develops and markets molecular diagnostic reagents for a variety of DNA and RNA analysis applications to meet the needs of our customers. The company offers a number of products based on its Invader® chemistry for clinical testing. Third Wave offers in vitro diagnostic kits, and analyte specific, general purpose, and research use only reagents for nucleic acid analysis. For more information about Third Wave and its products, please visit the company's website at www.twt.com. All statements in this news release that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially for Third Wave from those projected. Those factors include risks and uncertainties relating to the company's ability to bring new products to market as anticipated, the current regulatory environment in which the company sells its products, the market acceptance of those products, dependence on partners and customers, successful performance under collaborative and commercial agreements, competition, the strength of the Third Wave intellectual property, the intellectual property of others and other risk factors identified in the documents Third Wave has filed, or will file, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of the Third Wave filings with the SEC may be obtained from the SEC Internet site at http://www.sec.gov. Third Wave expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward- looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Third Wave's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statements are based. Third Wave Technologies, Invader and the Third Wave logo are trademarks of Third Wave Technologies, Inc.