Dublin, Ireland, 9th January 2009 - Azur Pharma Limited ("Azur Pharma") today announced
that it licensed the exclusive U.S. marketing rights for Niravam® (alprazolam
orally disintegrating tablets), Parcopa® (carbidopa-levodopa orally disintegrating
tablets), KemstroTM (baclofen orally disintegrating tablets)
and FluxidTM (famotidine orally disintegrating tablets)
from UCB (Euronext: UCB). Financial terms were not disclosed.
Niravam, Parcopa and Kemstro are central nervous system ("CNS") products. Azur Pharma's
CNS business currently markets FazaClo® in the U.S. for the management of severely
ill schizophrenic patients who fail to respond adequately to standard schizophrenia
drug treatments. FazaClo is supplied as an innovative orally disintegrating tablet
that uses proprietary formulation technologies licensed from CIMA Labs Inc. ("CIMA"),
a subsidiary of Cephalon Inc (NASDAQ: CEPH).
Mr Seamus Mulligan, Chairman and Chief Executive of Azur stated, "We are pleased
to add these valuable products to our portfolio. In particular, Niravam, Parcopa
and Kemstro represent a broadening of our CNS franchise and are consistent with
our approach of improving our products through the application of value added drug
delivery technologies."
Niravam and Parcopa have been commercially available in the U.S. since 2005 and
2004, respectively. There is one approved generic competitor to Parcopa. Two ANDAs
to Niravam have been filed with the FDA. Kemstro and Fluxid are both FDA approved
but not yet commercially available in the U.S.
About Azur Pharma
Azur is a privately held pharmaceutical company dedicated to enhancing patients'
lives by developing and marketing pharmaceutical products in specialist therapeutic
areas. Azur's strategy is to identify, evaluate, selectively acquire and enhance
the value of late stage development and approved pharmaceutical products. (Website:
www.azurpharma.com)
Azur Media Contact
Mr. Ray Gordon, MRPA Kinman Communications
Telephone: +353-1-7038619/+353-87-2417373
E-mail: ray@mrpakinman.ie