SANGAMO BIOSCIENCES ANNOUNCES RESEARCH COLLABORATION AGREEMENT WITH PFIZER INC ZFP TECHNOLOGY TO BE USED TO ENHANCE PROTEIN PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTION

Exhibit 99.1

SANGAMO BIOSCIENCES ANNOUNCES RESEARCH COLLABORATION AGREEMENT WITH PFIZER INC

ZFP TECHNOLOGY TO BE USED TO ENHANCE PROTEIN PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTION

RICHMOND, Calif., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sangamo BioSciences, Inc.

(Nasdaq: SGMO) announced today that it had entered into a research collaboration

with Pfizer Inc in the field of enhanced protein production. Under the terms of

the agreement, Pfizer will fund research at Sangamo and Sangamo will provide its

proprietary zinc finger DNA binding protein (ZFP) technology for Pfizer to

assess its feasibility for use in mammalian cell- based protein pharmaceutical

production. Sangamo will generate novel cell lines and vector systems for

enhanced protein production as well as novel technology for rapid and robust

creation of new production cell lines. The financial terms of the agreement were

not disclosed.

"We are very pleased to be able to provide Pfizer, the world's leading

research-based pharmaceutical company, with our ZFP gene activation technology,"

said Edward Lanphier, Sangamo's president and chief executive officer. "ZFP

transcription factors are used to regulate genes expressing protein

pharmaceuticals and we can engineer zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) to facilitate

the efficient generation of production cell lines with altered traits."

Zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) are the dominant class of naturally

occurring transcription factors in organisms from yeast to humans. Transcription

factors, which are found in the nucleus of every cell, bind to DNA to regulate

gene expression. Though there are many kinds of transcription factors, only zinc

finger