King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that King has exercised its option to license a third immediate-release opioid analgesic product utilizing Acura's proprietary Aversion technology.

King and Acura entered into a license, development and commercialization agreement in October 2007. The agreement provides King with an exclusive license to Acurox (oxycodone HCl, niacin, and functional inactive ingredients) tablets and another undisclosed opioid product, and an option to license all future opioid analgesic products formulated with Acura's Aversion technology.

In connection with the exercise of its option for this third opioid product under the agreement, King paid Acura an option exercise fee of $3.0 million. As a result, the companies are now jointly developing three immediate-release opioid analgesics utilizing Acura's Aversion technology, which is designed to resist or deter common methods of prescription drug misuse and abuse, a King Pharma press release stated.

Brian A. Markison, chairman, president and chief executive officer of King, stated, "King Pharmaceuticals is dedicated to developing a range of pain treatment solutions formulated to deliver optimal pain relief while reducing the risk of misuse, abuse and diversion. Accordingly, we are pleased to add another immediate-release opioid product that utilizes the Aversion technology platform to our development pipeline."

Robert B. Jones, chief operating officer of Acura, commented, "Achieving the proof of concept milestone associated with this product and King's exercise of their option further demonstrates the applicability of the Aversion technology platform to a wide range of products susceptible to abuse."

Aversion technology is a patented platform. King and Acura are developing immediate-release pain medicines using this technology. These investigational medicines incorporate proven opioid pain relievers with a sub therapeutic amount of niacin and a unique composition of functional inactive ingredients. Opioid pain medicines developed utilizing Aversion Technology are intended to relieve moderate to severe pain and resist or deter common methods of prescription drug abuse, including intravenous injection of dissolved tablets, nasal snorting of crushed tablets and intentional swallowing of excessive numbers of tablets.