Applied DNA Reports Fiscal Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results Company to Hold Conference Call and Webcast Today, Thursday

Fiscal Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results

Company to Hold Conference Call and Webcast

Thursday, August 6, 2020, at 4:30 PM EDT

STONY BROOK, N.Y. - August 6, 2020

- Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: APDN) ("Applied DNA" or the "Company"), a leader in Polymerase Chain

Reaction (PCR)-based DNA manufacturing that enables in vitro diagnostics, pre-clinical nucleic acid-based therapeutic drug

candidates, supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting and anti-theft technology, today announced consolidated financial results

for the fiscal third quarter and the nine months ended June 30, 2020.

"We continued during the quarter to position

the Company to serve the unmet and evolving needs for COVID-19 testing solutions and vaccine development," said Dr. James

A. Hayward, president and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences. "Upon the receipt of FDA Emergency Use Authorization ("EUA")

for our Linea COVID-19 diagnostic assay kit (for use with nasopharyngeal (NP) swab and anterior nasal swab (ANS) sample

collections), we put into place the foundation of our COVID-19 diagnostics business: we established the requisite supply chains

and inventory to support anticipated growth in assay kit demand; we formed a clinical lab subsidiary (Applied DNA Clinical Labs

LLC) that, once certified by the State of New York, will offer testing as a service ("TaaS") whose potential economics

to us is more favorable than that of standalone kit sales; and we applied for amendments to our EUA to expand the addressable market

for our kits and improve customer testing turnaround time and throughput. We are in the marketplace today with what we believe

to be a highly sensitive and purpose-designed platform for the high-throughput workflows found at clinical diagnostic laboratories

nationally. We are currently pursuing diagnostic kit contracts and, upon State certification, commercial testing contracts."

Continued Dr. Hayward, "The U.S. is facing

bottlenecks in testing capacity with supply shortages and testing backlogs at laboratories that, together with the spike in infection

numbers in the southern and western parts of the country, suggests greater and long-term demand for testing. We believe we are

well-positioned to deliver greater patient access to testing and increased market penetration in the coming quarters. The recent

amendments to our EUA advance our go-to-market strategy significantly: they greatly enhance our opportunity for commercial kit

sales by increasing the size of the installed base of RT-PCR systems upon which our kit can run and they enable the use of automated

RNA extraction robotics at third-party labs and at Applied DNA Clinical Labs LLC, when licensed, to increase testing throughput.

"We have also recruited our first research

sponsors who have funded the development of pooling models for the testing of asymptomatic patients (screening testing), which

we will be presenting to FDA. We believe that our ability to sample for the virus using the less-invasive ANS will enhance compliance

among students and asymptomatic individuals who may require multiple rounds of testing. Several academic institutions are contemplating

COVID-19 safety programs based upon the use of our diagnostic kit to enhance the safety of students, faculty, and staff. We have

recruited both internal and external sales infrastructures to drive demand for our diagnostic kit."

Commenting on the development of the Company's

vaccine candidates co-developed with Takis S.R.L. and Evvivax S.R.L. (collectively, "Takis Biotech"), Dr. Hayward stated,

"Tests on the linear DNA forms of our COVID-19 vaccine candidates provoked seroconversion in mouse models that are

consistent with prior data from the plasmid forms of the vaccine candidates by Takis Biotech. Our results suggest that a low-dose

vaccine could be potentially effective in providing protection while the T cell response suggests potential long-term persistence.

We believe our results in animal models echo the effectiveness announced by some of the COVID-19 vaccines already in human trials.

We have attracted the attention of Big Pharma' and are presently negotiating rights to novel delivery systems and

funding for sophisticated toxicology screens done in collaboration with our partner Takis Biotech and their network of service

With regard to the Company's non-biological

business segment, Dr. Hayward said, "Our supply chain security segment felt the full brunt of COVID-19 in the fiscal third

quarter that resulted in a further weakening of demand for tagging and related services across the global supply chain chains we

serve. We remain focused on business-building in key industrial and regulated markets, including textiles, cannabis, personal care,

nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals, ahead of the return of increased demand patterns."

Concluded Dr. Hayward, "Looking ahead,

we are focused on advancing our COVID-19 diagnostic kit and TaaS market strategy and progressing the development of the linear

DNA forms of our vaccine candidates. To drive broader adoption of our kit by laboratories and to increase TaaS opportunities,

we plan additional EUA amendments to further expand the base of RT-PCR systems relevant to our kit and to secure the ability to

conduct asymptomatic screening testing, which we believe would confer onto us a potentially significant commercial advantage in

the marketplace. We also await New York State certification of Applied DNA Clinical Labs LLC that would initiate commercial testing

the development of our vaccine candidates, we expect to launch of toxicology screens once funding is secured followed by higher

animal studies before initiating human trials. We are recruiting industry partners to lead on the regulatory process and distribution

with Applied DNA serving as the sole-source manufacturer globally. With our linear DNATM manufacturing platform, we

are differentiated not only for our ability to manufacture any linear DNA form of a COVID-19 vaccine at extremely large

scale, but also for our ability to react to any new variants of the virus with unrivaled speed."

Recent Business Highlights:

LineaTM COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2

On July 31, 2020, the Company

announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had granted its second EUA amendment that increases the size of the

installed base of RT-PCR systems upon which the Company's diagnostic assay kit can run as well as the speed and throughput

of the laboratory process, including RNA extraction, via a robotic platform. The EUA was granted to Applied DNA on May 13, 2020,

and the first amendment to the EUA was granted on July 8, 2020.

amendment to the EUA: 1) extends the RT-PCR platform from the Applied Biosystems (ThermoFisher Scientific) QuantStudio Dx to

include Applied Biosystems' QuantStudio 5 Real-Time PCR system to analyze patient samples on the company's Linea

COVID-19 assay kit; and 2) authorized the use of the Hamilton STARlet robotic automation in conjunction with the Omega Bio-tek

MagBind viral RNA Express kit to speed the process of extracting viral RNA from specimens and drive greater testing throughput.

scope of the EUA, as amended, is expressly limited to use consistent with the Instructions for Use by authorized laboratories,

certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) to perform high complexity tests. The EUA will be

effective until the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of in vitro diagnostics

for detection and/or diagnosis of COVID-19 is terminated or until the EUA's prior termination or revocation. The diagnostic

kit has not been FDA cleared or approved, and the EUA's limited authorization is only for the detection of nucleic acid from

SARS-CoV-2, not for any other viruses or pathogens.

On July 17, 2020, Applied

DNA and its vaccine development partner, Takis Biotech, announced that linear DNA forms of COVID-19 vaccine candidates under

development by Takis Biotech and manufactured by the Company yielded strong antibody and T-cell responses even at very low doses

The Company believes that

linear DNA vaccines offer a broad array of potential advantages: stability during storage and shipment, the capacity to

manufacture both centrally and locally across the globe, vaccine expression without apparent integration into the patient's

genome, the avoidance of antibiotics, no risk of transference of antibiotic-resistance genes, the avoidance of bacterial vectors,

high purity and simplicity of production, and apparent high efficacy. Given the mutational proclivity of SARS-CoV-2, and the synthetic

genomic design skills of Takis Biotech, the Company believes it could manufacture an improved linear DNA vaccine within

weeks of obtaining the sequence of a mutant variant that dodged any future vaccines targeting then dominant variants.

Applied DNA Clinical Labs LLC ("ADCL")

On July 9, 2020, the Company announced the formation

of ADCL as a wholly-owned subsidiary dedicated to the commercial development of its tests in virology (for the detection of COVID-19)

and in oncology (for the detection and enumeration of invasive Circulating Tumor Cells (iCTCs) in patients with cancer).

In forming ADCL, Applied DNA is executing on

a strategy to expand its market reach through value-added services complementary to a growing portfolio of diagnostic assays attractive

to a broader number of qualified labs.

On June 26, 2020, the Company announced that

it had joined the Russell Microcap Index (the "Index") following the conclusion of the 2020 Russell indexes

annual reconstitution.

Fiscal Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results:

Nine-Month Financial Highlights:

Fiscal Third Quarter 2020 Conference Call

The Company will hold a conference call and webcast to discuss

its fiscal third quarter-end 2020 results on Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 4:30 PM ET. To participate on the conference call, please