Taro Pharmaceutical Industries initiates its T2007 non-sedating barbiturate compound Phase I clinical trials

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (“Taro,” the “Company,” Pink Sheets: TAROF) announced that it has begun Phase I clinical trials in Canada with T2007, the second in the Company’s class of proprietary non-sedating barbiturate compounds to be approved for studies in humans.

T2007 is the sodium salt of diphenylbarbituric acid (DPB). In previous Phase II studies conducted in Canada, T2000, a prodrug (precursor) of DPB, produced functional improvement in patients with essential tremor. The Company announced last week that the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), has granted an Investigational New Drug (“IND”) exemption to permit clinical studies on T2000 in the U.S. The Company expects that its experience with T2000 will facilitate its development of T2007.

Plans for T2007 are currently directed at its use as an antiepileptic agent. In animal models, DPB has efficacy comparable to phenobarbital, a long-established clinical treatment for epilepsy. Phenobarbital remains the most commonly prescribed antiepileptic drug throughout the world, although its use has always been limited by its sedating side effects and it has been largely replaced by newer agents in Europe and North America.