Novadel Angina Drug Cleared

Shares of specialty pharmaceutical company Novadel Pharma(NVD) jumped 9% Friday following an announcement that regulators approved its oral spray for relieving and preventing angina due to coronary artery disease.

"The [Food and Drug Administration's] approval of NitroMist is a major milestone for NovaDel, as it represents the first approval of a drug using our proprietary oral spray technology," said Jan Egberts, president and CEO of NovaDel. "With this approval, we will now focus our resources on the rapid advancement of our pipeline of compounds that promise to provide faster onset of action and more patient-friendly dosing."

North American marketing rights to the drug have been licensed to Par Pharmaceutical(PRX). Novadel expects a payment from Par as a result of the product's approval.

"We are very pleased that our partnership with NovaDel has successfully delivered an additional treatment option for those patients who suffer from acute angina," said Paul Campanelli, senior vice president of business development and licensing at Par. "At this time, we are finalizing our commercialization strategy for the product."

Shares of Novadel were up 11 cents to $1.36.

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