Sucampo Announces Acceptance of New Drug Submission for AMITIZA by Health Canada

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Sucampo)

, a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced that Health Canada has accepted the company's New Drug Submission (NDS) for AMITIZA® (lubiprostone), 24 mcg capsules, for the treatment of chronic idiopathic constipation in adults and opioid induced constipation in adults with chronic non-cancer pain. "AMITIZA has been available to patients in the U.S., Japan, U.K. and Switzerland, with over nine million prescriptions written in the US alone and continued year over year growth in sales," said Peter Greenleaf, Chief Executive Officer of Sucampo. "Together with our partner Takeda, we are now focused on making AMITIZA available to patients in new markets worldwide, and this new drug submission in Canada is another important step in this process." Sucampo is responsible for all regulatory interactions and for negotiating approval of AMITIZA in Canada, and Takeda Canada Inc. will have responsibility for product commercialization in that market. Takeda will now be exclusively marketing AMITIZA in all global markets, except Japan and the People's Republic of China.