European Commission Grants Orphan Medicinal Product Designation for Emmaus Medical's Sickle Cell Treatment

European Commission Grants Orphan Medicinal Product Designation for Emmaus Medical's Sickle Cell Treatment PR Newswire TORRANCE, California, July 17, 2012 -Company Provides Update on Phase III U.S. FDA Clinical Trials for the Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease- TORRANCE, California, July 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Emmaus Medical, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical and regenerative medicine technology company, and subsidiary of Emmaus Life Sciences, Inc., today announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted Orphan Medicinal Product designation for the company's investigational drug Levoglutamide (L-glutamine) for the treatment of sickle cell disease. The EC designation follows the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products announced in May. Sickle cell disease affects approximately 2.5 in 10,000 people in the European Union, according to studies filed with EMA. However, in some European countries, the concentration of those suffering from sickle cell disease is higher as a result of demographics, migration and geographic mobility, surpassing genetic disorders such as hemophilia and cystic fibrosis, according to a study in the Hematology Journal. "The positive decision by the European Commission paves the way for us to provide accessible treatment to people throughout Europe who suffer from this debilitating disease," said Yutaka Niihara, M.D., MPH, founder and CEO of Emmaus.