Napo Pharmaceuticals

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Share Purchase

Notification of Transactions of Directors, Persons Discharging Managerial Responsibility or Connected Persons

South San Francisco, California, 7 May 2008 - South San Francisco, California, Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (LSE: NAPL and NAPU), announces that in relation to transactions of Directors and Persons Discharging Managerial Responsibility, it was informed on 6 May 2008 that Dr. Steven King, VP Ethnobotanical Research, Supply and IP, purchased 75,000 Common Shares (LSE: NAPL) at a price of 5.75 pence per share.

These shares were purchased on 30 April 2008. Following the purchase of these Common Shares, Steven King has a total personal holding of 154,116 Common Shares in the Company amounting to 0.3 per cent of the issued share capital.

Dr. King has a deemed interest in 183,344 shares of Common Shares which are held by Thad R Partridge Trustee for the Steven R King 2006 Children's Trust. This is an irrevocable trust.

For more information please contract:

Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Lisa Conte, Chief Executive Officer
(001) + 650 616 1902

Charles Thompson, Chief Financial Officer
(001) + 650 616 1903

Buchanan Communications
(44) + 020 7466 5000
Tim Anderson, Mary-Jane Johnson, Catherine Breen


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.