[ELITE PHARMACEUTICALS INC. LOGO]
ELITE PHARMACEUTICALS ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT
FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONTROLLED RELEASE PRODUCT
NORTHVALE, N.J., June 28 -- Elite
Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. (Amex: ELI)
announced
that it has entered into a product
development and license agreement with Pliva,
Inc. (East Hanover, NJ), a subsidiary of PLIVA d.d., a specialty generics
pharmaceutical company, for a generic, controlled release drug product
formulated by Elite. The product is an
anti-infective with a
U.S generic market
size of approximately $90 million in 2004 and which had an
approximate
10%
growth in dose units sold in 2004. A pilot bioequivalence study has been
completed and scale up will begin shortly.
Elite will
manufacture
the product
and Pliva will market and sell the product.
The development
costs will be paid
by Pliva and Elite and the profits will be
shared equally.
Bernard Berk, Chairman and CEO of Elite,
said, "We are very pleased to have this
relationship with Pliva Inc., a well known and
highly regarded
company in the
generic drug industry. This controlled release product represents another
step
in building our pipeline at Elite and is Elite's
third product development
agreement this year."
ABOUT ELITE PHARMACEUTICALS
Elite Pharmaceuticals is a specialty
pharmaceutical company
principally engaged
in the development of oral, controlled
release products. The
Company's strategy
includes developing generic versions of controlled
release drug products
with
high barriers to entry and assisting part
