Crofelemer

A proprietary gastro-intestinal compound in clinical development for four distinct product indications

news

NAPO PRESENTS AT ISPOR MEETING IN TORONTO

South San Francisco, California, 9 May, 2008 - Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (LSE: NAPL and NAPU), announces that it presented a poster in collaboration with QualityMetric, Inc. describing the development of a patient reported outcomes questionnaire focused on the Health-Related Quality of Life (HR-QoL) aspects of chronic diarrhea in persons living with HIV/AIDS at the 13th International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Annual Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, May 3-7, 2008.

Using classic and modern psychometric methods, a single scale comprised of 9 survey questions covering two HR-QoL content areas was developed. The survey questions showed consistency across gender, race and education level, demonstrated a statistically significant greater negative impact on HR-QoL with more frequent and more severe diarrhea symptoms.

Cathy Olufs, President, AIDS Activist Treatment Coalition (ATAC) stated, "We are fortunate to currently have a wide choice of HIV medications and combinations. This makes understanding medication side effects and their impact on a patient's quality of life more important than ever. Controlling side effects such as diarrhea can help give patients access to the full armamentarium of anti-retroviral drugs. We are pleased to see Napo taking the initiative to develop this new instrument to measure health-related quality of life as affected by diarrhea."


For more information please contact:

Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Lisa Conte, Chief Executive Officer
1 + 650 616 1902

David Golman, Pharm.D., Senior Director, Clinical Operations
1+ 760 918 5718


About Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. focuses on the development and commercialisation of proprietary pharmaceuticals for the global marketplace in collaboration with local partners. Napo was founded in November 2001, and is based in California, USA with a subsidiary in Mumbai, India.

Napo's late-stage proprietary gastro-intestinal compound, crofelemer, is in various stages of clinical development for four distinct product indications, including a late-stage Phase 3 program:

CRO-HIV for AIDS diarrhoea, Phase 3
CRO-IBS for diarrhoea irritable bowel syndrome ("D-IBS"), Phase 2
CRO-ID for acute infectious diarrhoea (including cholera), Phase 2
CRO-PED for paediatric diarrhoea, Phase 1

The FDA has granted fast-track status to CRO-IBS and CRO-HIV.

Crofelemer, a proprietary patented agent, is extracted from Croton lechleri, a medicinal plant which can be sustainably harvested from several countries in South America. Napo also plans to develop an early clinical stage product, NP-500, for the treatment of insulin resistant diseases of Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome (Syndrome X; pre-diabetic syndrome). Napo also has a plant library of approximately 2,300 medicinal plants from tropical regions, and Napo has entered two screening relationship associated with this collection.

Currently, products are based on the chemical and biological diversity derived from plants with medicinal properties, but future products may be in-licensed from other sources.

Napo has partnerships with Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Limited of India and AsiaPharm Group Ltd. of China.

For more information please visit www.napopharma.com.

About ISPOR

ISPOR promotes the science of pharmacoeconomics (health economics) and outcomes research (the scientific discipline that evaluates the effect of health care interventions on patient well-being including clinical outcomes, economic outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes) and facilitates the translation of this research into useful information for healthcare decision-makers to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly and efficiently.