AcelRx announces receipt of two notices of allowance for small-volume oral transmucosal dosage forms 

AcelRx announces receipt of two notices of allowance for small-volume oral transmucosal dosage forms

Apr 12, 2012 (Menafn - M2 EQUITYBITES via COMTEX) --AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (nasdaqgm:ACRX), a specialty pharmaceutical company, announced yesterday that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued it two Notices of Allowance for the patent applications entitled 'Small-Volume Oral Transmucosal Dosage Forms' and 'Bioadhesive Drug Formulations for Oral Transmucosal Delivery'.

The company said that the patents to be issued from these applications describe a method of treating pain by adhering a small-volume solid tablet containing sufentanil to the oral mucosa, as well as compositions and dosage forms broadly covering NanoTab formulations. The patents to be issued can be kept in force for sufentanil NanoTab based products through at least February 2029.

These allowances issued by the USPTO are in relation to sublingual sufentanil NanoTabs. AcelRx exclusively owns the underlying patent applications, which when issued will individually and collectively provide domestic protection for each of the company's four development programmes.

Also, a related European patent, EP2114383B1, was previously issued by the European Patent Office (EPO) in June 2010 and AcelRx is also prosecuting similar claims internationally through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). This European patent EP2114383 covers small-volume NanoTab dosage forms for transmucosal administration containing the opioid sufentanil.

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