Depomed, Inc has been awarded two cash grants totalling approximately US$ 489,000 under the US Government's Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project (QTDP) programme. The QTDP programme was part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law in March 2010. The grants received by the company related to two of the company's development programs, Serada for the treatment menopausal hot flashes and DM-1992 for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Under the QTDP programme, a total of US$ 1 billion in grants or tax credits was made available to companies with 250 employees or fewer and covers up to 50 per cent of qualified investments in projects aimed at creating new therapies, reducing long-term health care costs, or significantly advancing the goal of curing cancer within the next 30 years, subject to a maximum of US$ 5 million per applicant. The individual awards of approximately US$ 245,000 per project, represents a pro-rata reduction applied to all applicants, as the QTDP programme was significantly oversubscribed. Both applications submitted by the company received an award.

"We are grateful to the federal government for its support of innovation in healthcare and its recognition of the unmet clinical need in the therapeutic areas that both our Serada and Parkinson's programmes address," said Carl A Pelzel, president and chief executive officer of Depomed.

Depomed is a specialty pharmaceutical company with one product candidate through phase-3 clinical development, another in phase-3 clinical development, two approved products on the market and other product candidates in its early stage pipeline.