Imprimis Pharmaceuticals
San Diego, Calif. – Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMY), a pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of proprietary compounded drug formulations, today announced that it has acquired the rights to novel proprietary sedation and analgesia/anesthesia formulations that, once prescribed and dispensed for an individual patient, are administered sublingually to block pain and sedate patients undergoing ocular and other surgical procedures. After completing its intellectual property diligence process and filing a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office, Imprimis executed an invention assignment agreement to acquire the rights to commercialize these formulations. A team of ophthalmic surgeons is conducting a patient-specific clinical evaluation in order to support commercialization of this important asset. The company expects that these new compounded formulations for conscious sedation may be available for prescription and dispensing sometime during the fall of this year.
John Berdahl, MD of Vance Thompson Vision and co-developer of the formulations stated, “We believe these new compounded formulations for conscious sedation may uniquely provide the desired combination of medications to help alleviate pain and reduce stress in patients undergoing ophthalmic surgery. The formulations, in a troche format, have allowed for quick and easy sublingual administration resulting in increased positive experiences for patients and staff. Traditionally, sedation medications for ocular surgery have been administered intravenously, which requires costly IV supplies, the sedation drugs themselves and the need for additional staff to assist in preparation, administration and monitoring related to this process, all of which often cause delays and disruptions in the operating room. We have used a variation of these new conscious sedation formulations in over 1,000 cataract and refractive surgeries. Based on our experiences to date, we believe that like our practices, others around the United States and potentially around the world, including surgical centers and hospitals, could experience significant cost savings, improvements in operating room work flow and great patient outcomes by adopting these formulations in their cataract and refractive patients’ surgeries.”
Dr. Berdahl added, “We are particularly excited to work with Imprimis because in our practice their Dropless Therapy™ injectables and LessDrops™ combination topical eye drop formulations have already brought vastly improved patient experiences and incredible value.”
Mark L. Baum, CEO of Imprimis, stated, “We are pleased to be working with another group of pioneering ophthalmologists in order to bring these innovative and proprietary formulations to market. The potential cost savings to physicians, patients and other parts of the ophthalmic surgery value chain with these new conscious sedation compounded drugs are consistent with our vision of making novel drug formulations available to physicians and patients today at accessible prices. We look forward to completing our patient-specific clinical evaluation process over the next few months and to hopefully introduce these new compounded drug options to physicians and surgery centers this fall. Going forward, we plan to continue to work with leading physicians, scientists and other traditional drug development companies in order to bring exciting intellectual property assets to market that have the potential to add value to our growing ophthalmology and urology franchises.”