Print（PDF/50KB） Jun. 01, 2011 R&D

Announcement on Co-development and Co-marketing Agreement for Carpal-tunnel Syndrome, an Additional Indication of Limaprost, an Oral Prostaglandin E1 Analogue

Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) and Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) announced today that the companies entered into the Agreement to jointly develop and market limaprost alphadex (generic name: limaprost) for the treatment of carpal-tunnel syndrome as an additional indication in Japan.

The compound is an oral prostaglandin E1 analogue and was discovered from the companies' collaborative research. It was approved for the treatment of ischemic symptoms such as skin ulcer, pain and coldness accompanying thromboangiitis obliterans in 1988, and for the treatment of subjective symptoms such as pain and numbness of lower leg and walking disability associated with acquired lumbar spinal canal stenosis as an additional indication in 2001. The drug has been sold under the trade name of Opalmon® Tablets by Ono and Prorenal® Tablets by Dainippon Sumitomo.

Carpal-tunnel syndrome is a neurological disorder mainly associated with numbness and pain of hands and fingers, and has been reported that it is resulted from compression, due to any cause, on the median nerve of the base of the hands, and involved with reduction in blood flow of the compressed nerve tissue. Limaprost alphadex product has peripheral vasodilatory effect, activity to increase in blood flow and inhibitory effect of platelet aggregation and improves peripheral circulatory disorders. It is therefore expected that the drug improves reduced blood flow of the nerve tissue associated with carpal-tunnel syndrome and normalize the nerve functions, resulting in improvement of numbness and pain of hands and fingers.