• Analyst Hosted Event to Discuss Refocused Business, Cost Reductions and Turnaround Plan

Buffalo, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - January 12, 2024) - 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: XXII) (the "Company" or "22nd Century"), a biotechnology company focused on utilizing advanced plant technologies to improve health and wellness, today announced that it will host a fireside chat event on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 beginning at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The event will be hosted by a covering research analyst and feature interactive Q&A with Larry Firestone, who was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in December 2023.

Mr. Firestone will address the new corporate strategy to create a lean operating cost structure focused on the Company's tobacco manufacturing and tobacco harm reduction products, return the Company to growth and strengthen the balance sheet to ultimately self-fund the Company's development plans.

"We have made significant progress at 22nd Century in a very short time, demonstrating our shared commitment to streamline the business, reduce costs and position the Company on sustainable growth strategies that can lead to positive cash flows," said Firestone. "We are by no means finished with our efforts, and expect to further reduces costs, pay off our debt and diversify our continuing operations as the year progresses. This will enable the Company to fully focus on the best path to achieving commercial success, particularly with our FDA-authorized VLN® harm reduction products."

A webcast link to join the live webcast or a replay of the event will be available on the investor relations section of the 22nd Century Group website, at https://ir.xxiicentury.com, under "Events and Presentations."

About 22nd Century Group, Inc.
22nd Century Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: XXII) is an agricultural biotechnology company focused on tobacco harm reduction, reduced nicotine tobacco and improving health and wellness through plant science. With dozens of patents allowing it to control nicotine biosynthesis in the tobacco plant, the Company has developed proprietary reduced nicotine content (RNC) tobacco plants and cigarettes, which have become the cornerstone of the FDA's Comprehensive Plan to address the widespread death and disease caused by smoking. The Company received the first and only FDA Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP) authorization for a combustible cigarette in December 2021. 22nd Century uses modern plant breeding technologies, including genetic engineering, gene-editing, and molecular breeding to deliver solutions for the life science and consumer products industries by creating new, proprietary plants with optimized alkaloid and flavonoid profiles as well as improved yields and valuable agronomic traits.

Learn more at xxiicentury.com, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and on YouTube.

Learn more about VLN^® at tryvln.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to our full year business outlook. Forward-looking statements typically contain terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "consider," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "explore," "foresee," "goal," "guidance," "intend," "likely," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "preliminary," "probable," "project," "promising," "seek," "should," "will," "would," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding (i) the sale of our hemp/cannabis business, including the GVB assets, (ii) our expectations regarding our future operating expenses and cash flow, (iii) our expectations on the timing and completion of the sale of our hemp/cannabis business, and (iv) our expectations for our business interruption insurance claim. Actual results might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 9, 2023 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed May 9, 2023, August 14, 2023 and November 6, 2023. All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Investor Relations & Media Contact
Matt Kreps
Investor Relations
22nd Century Group
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