New Customer for 22nd Century's Internally Owned Moonlight Brand Could Increase Factory Volumes by More Than 30% When Fully Scaled, Improve Gross Profit Profile

Mocksville, North Carolina--(Newsfile Corp. - September 23, 2024) - 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: XXII), a tobacco products company that is leading the fight against nicotine and believes smokers should have a choice about their nicotine consumption, today announced a new customer agreement to supply its Moonlight branded cigarettes to the Southeast Asia marketplace. The first shipment is expected in the fourth quarter of 2024, with the opportunity to significantly expand volumes as the customer launches in key markets throughout 2025.

"This new customer represents an exciting opportunity to deploy one of our underutilized in-house brand assets to drive new growth opportunities, expanding our presence in a market with a widespread smoking culture in Southeast Asia," said Larry Firestone, Chairman and CEO. "At scale, we believe this contract represents an opportunity to grow our manufacturing volumes by more than 30% over the next 15 months."

"We have additional brands and assets that we can deploy into these or other markets in the U.S. and around the world," added Firestone. "We are currently discussing similar opportunities with customers interested in deploying those brands and predicates, as well as customers interested in offering a reduced nicotine content product under their own branding, helping us to build a new category around our innovative VLN products."

22nd Century owns a number of brands which among others include Pinnacle, Moonlight, Magic and Ranger, in addition to its VLN 95% reduced nicotine content branded cigarettes, the only combustible cigarette authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration specifically designed to reduce smoking rates. The Company recently announced the launch of its VLN branded products into the South Korean market, and expansion strategy in the U.S., which is expected to include flanker brands for additional reduced nicotine content products intended to help adult smokers to smoke less.

About 22nd Century Group, Inc.

22nd Century Group is the pioneering nicotine harm reduction company in the tobacco industry enabling smokers to take control of their nicotine consumption.

We created our flagship product, the VLN cigarette, to give traditional cigarette smokers an authentic and familiar alternative that helps them smoke less. VLN is the world's first and only combustible cigarette to receive a Modified Risk Tobacco Product designation from the FDA, which the FDA has mandated be described as a product that Helps You Smoke Less. VLN cigarettes have 95% less nicotine than the traditional cigarette and have been proven to greatly reduce nicotine consumption. Instead of offering new ways of delivering nicotine to addicted smokers, we offer smokers the option to take control of their nicotine consumption and make informed and more productive choices, including the choice to avoid addictive levels of nicotine altogether.

Our wholly owned subsidiaries include a leading cigarette manufacturer that produces all VLN products and provides turnkey contract manufacturing for other tobacco brands both domestically and internationally. The 60,000 square foot facility in Mocksville, North Carolina has the capacity to produce more than 45 million cartons of combusted tobacco products annually with additional space for expansion.

Our proprietary reduced nicotine tobacco blends are made possible by comprehensive and patented technologies that regulate nicotine biosynthesis activities in the tobacco plant, resulting in full flavor and high yield with 95% less nicotine. Our extensive patent portfolio has been developed to ensure we have the only low nicotine combustible cigarette in the United States and critical international markets. Our mission is to sell the last cigarette before the 22nd Century.

VLN and Helps You Smoke Less are registered trademarks of 22nd Century Limited LLC.

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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) our cost reduction initiatives, (ii) our expectations regarding regulatory enforcement, including our ability to receive an exemption from new regulations, (iii) our financial and operating performance 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 28, 2024, and in the Company's Quarterly Reports filed on May 15, 2024 and August 13, 2024. All information provided in this 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.