Cornerstone Therapeutics Announces Collaboration with The Cough Company

CARY, N.C., Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: CRTX) ("Cornerstone" or the "Company"), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing and commercializing significant products primarily for the respiratory and related markets, today announced that the Company has entered into a License Agreement and a Development Agreement with Alitair Pharmaceuticals, Inc, also known as The Cough Company ("The Cough Company").  Under the terms of the agreement, Cornerstone has acquired a license to certain of The Cough Company's proprietary intellectual property and the companies will collaborate in developing one or more products to treat respiratory diseases.  

The Cough Company has a portfolio of patents pending, which relate to its proprietary drug delivery system.  This portfolio includes claims covering solid oral dosage formulations in a wide variety of therapeutic categories.  Cornerstone intends to leverage this intellectual property to develop one or more proprietary, patent-protected cough and cold products.  

"We view The Cough Company as an important partner in the continued development of our cough and cold franchise, which is a key aspect of our growth strategy," said Craig A. Collard, Cornerstone's President and Chief Executive Officer.  "This collaboration has the potential to significantly enhance our pipeline, which already includes multiple innovative product candidates in the respiratory space."

"Cornerstone provides the respiratory marketing expertise which we believe will translate our development program into multiple commercial successes," said William Howard, Ph.D., President of The Cough Company.  "We look forward to moving our platform forward with Cornerstone's support."

Pursuant to the agreement, Cornerstone will make an upfront one-time payment and has committed to making subsequent success-based milestone payments, as well as royalties based on any future net sales of licensed products.  Cornerstone's rights to The Cough Company's intellectual property are exclusive as long as the parties are actively collaborating on any product development.  

About Cornerstone Therapeutics

Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: CRTX), headquartered in Cary, N.C., is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing and commercializing significant products primarily for the respiratory and related markets.  The Company currently promotes multiple marketed products in the United States to respiratory-focused physicians, key retail pharmacies and hospitals with its specialty sales forces.  The Company also has a late-stage clinical pipeline with a recent regulatory submission filing and four additional regulatory approval submissions targeted within the next three years.  Key elements of the Company's strategy are to in-license or acquire rights to under-promoted, patent-protected, branded respiratory or related pharmaceutical products, or late-stage product candidates; implement life cycle management strategies to maximize the potential value and competitive position of the Company's currently marketed products, newly acquired products and product candidates that are currently in development; grow product revenue through the Company's specialty sales forces; and maintain and strengthen the intellectual property position of the Company's currently marketed products, newly acquired products and product candidates.

About The Cough Company

The Cough Company is a division of Alitair Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a privately held drug development company with products under development in the respiratory, pain and women's health categories.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For this purpose, any statements contained herein, other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding the progress and timing of our licensing transactions, our product development programs and related trials, our strategy and our future operations and opportunities, constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including our development programs, the results of preclinical studies and clinical trials with respect to our products under development, our ability to enter into collaboration or other license arrangements with respect to our technology on commercially reasonable terms or at all, our ability to obtain and maintain protection for the intellectual property we own or license from third parties, our ability to satisfy FDA and other regulatory requirements and the other factors described in Item 1A (Risk Factors) of our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) on March 4, 2010 and in our subsequent filings with the SEC. In addition, the statements in this press release reflect our expectations and beliefs as of the date of this release, should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any other date and do not reflect the potential impact of any acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, business development transactions, joint ventures or investments that we may make or enter into. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause our expectations and beliefs to change. However, while we may elect to update these forward-looking statements publicly at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc.