22nd Century Group Provides Shareholder Update and Highlights Insider Stock Purchases from Management

Buffalo, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - January 17, 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 provided a shareholder update.

"I am pleased with the progress of the company since assuming my role as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at the start of December," stated Larry Firestone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 22nd Century. "We have moved quickly to streamline our tobacco operations and finalize the cost reduction initiatives that commenced in the third quarter of 2023. Our focus is extending our cash runway to become a self-sustaining business positioned to generate long term growth. The sale of our GVB business and shift from hemp/cannabis has substantially reduced our forward operating cash requirements and enabled us to now fully focus the Company's resources on our unique tobacco assets where we are evolving our strategy. I believe these actions represent the path for the company as we move forward."

Mr. Firestone will address the progress and upcoming milestones for the Company on an analyst hosted fireside chat webcast on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 beginning at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. A webcast link to join the live webcast or a replay after 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.

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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. 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
mkreps@xxiicentury.com
214-597-8200

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