The company announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for U.S. Patent application 12/142,604 entitled "Pharmacokinetics of Iontophoretic Sumatriptan Administration."

Given this action, NuPathe expects the patent to issue within the next few months. Once issued, it will provide additional patent protection through April 2027 for NP101, NuPathe's lead product candidate for the treatment of migraine.

This coverage is in addition to that provided by NuPathe's U.S. Patent No. 7,973,058 entitled

"Transdermal Methods and Systems for Delivery of Anti-Migraine Compounds," which expires in April 2027, and its U.S. Patent No. 6,745,071 entitled "Iontophoretic Drug Delivery System," which expires in February 2023. Upon approval of NuPathe's New Drug Application (NDA) for NP101, NuPathe expects to list all three patents in the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's (FDA's) Orange Book. NuPathe also has additional patent applications pending in the U.S. and other territories for its migraine patch.

"Issuance of this patent will further strengthen our intellectual property related to NP101," said Jane Hollingsworth, chief executive officer of NuPathe. "If approved, our breakthrough technology will offer the first-ever patch for migraine, providing rapid, consistent and controlled delivery through the skin of the most widely prescribed migraine medication. We look forward to re-submitting our NDA for the migraine patch in the first half of this year."