Aegis Awarded 3rd Patent for Fast Acting Migraine Nasal Spray Treatment

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 13, 2013) - Aegis Therapeutics LLC announced today that it has been awarded a third patent for fast acting formulations of triptans, a widely used class of drugs including sumatriptan, zolmitriptan, naratriptan, rizatriptan, eletriptan, almotriptan and frovatriptan, that are highly effective in treating migraine headaches. New Zealand Patent No. 5937828 is the first international Aegis patent covering the triptans to issue providing patent coverage through December 2029. Numerous additional international patent applications are in process worldwide. Human clinical trials have shown that the Intravail® formulation of sumatriptan achieves therapeutic drug levels at approximately 2 to 3 minutes, 20 to 30 times faster that the currently marketed non-injectable sumatriptan products. For comparison, the most widely used triptan formulations, namely sumatriptan nasal spray or tablet formulations, both reach maximum blood levels of drug in about 60 to 120 minutes thus delaying onset of relief. The total triptan market exceeds $3 billion annually, with sumatriptan comprising approximately $2 billion of the total.

The enabling Aegis Intravail formulation technology is broadly applicable to a wide range of small molecule and biotherapeutic drugs to increase noninvasive bioavailability by the oral, nasal, buccal, and sublingual routes and to speed attainment of therapeutic drug levels in cases where speed is important to the patient, for example in the treatment of pain, nausea, emesis, convulsive disorders, spasticity, and the like.

Aegis technology is commercialized by our licensees who conduct the actual product development and marketing activities. Aegis' licensees include five of the top 10 largest pharmaceutical companies and two of the top 10 largest generics companies, along with many public and private biotech companies.

About Aegis Therapeutics

Aegis Therapeutics LLC is a drug delivery technology company commercializing its patented drug delivery and drug formulation technologies through product-specific licenses. Our Intravail® drug delivery technology enables the non-invasive delivery of a broad range of protein, peptide and non-peptide drugs that can currently only be administered by injection, via the oral, buccal, and intranasal administration routes, and with high bioavailability. Our ProTek® excipients stabilize, prevent aggregation, and reduce unwanted immunogenicity of protein and peptide therapeutics while avoiding the oxidative damage caused by polysorbate surfactants.

For more information about Aegis, please visit: http://www.aegisthera.com.