EpiCept Corporation today announced that it has amended its December 20, 2006 licensing agreement with DURECT Corporation.

The amendment grants DURECT exclusive, worldwide rights to EpiCept’s transdermal patch containing bupivacaine for the treatment of back pain. Under the terms of the amended agreement, EpiCept has granted DURECT royalty-free, fully paid up, perpetual and irrevocable rights to the intellectual property licensed as part of the original agreement in exchange for a cash payment of USD 2.25 million from DURECT.

The company intends to use the proceeds of this non-dilutive cash payment as working capital and for general corporate purposes as it prepares for the launch of Ceplene(R) (histamine dihydrochloride) following receipt of final marketing authorization in Europe, which EpiCept anticipates receiving within the next several weeks.

EpiCept is focused on unmet needs in the treatment of cancer and pain and they are working on such medications as Ceplene(R), a cytokine immunomodulator for the remission maintenance of AML patients. In addition, EpiCept's ASAP technology, a proprietary live-cell high-throughput caspase-3 screening technology, efficiently identifies new cancer drug candidates and molecular targets that selectively induce apoptosis in cancer cells.

Source: EpiCept Corp.