Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has announced plans to launch the LOQOA Tape, a transdermal anti-inflammatory analgesic patch formulation for the treatment of osteoarthritis pain and inflammation. In Phase III clinical trials in which a flurbiprofen gel patch was administered as a control drug to patients with osteoarthritis of the knee joint, LOQOA Tape as a patch formulation to be applied once a day was found to significantly improve the pain in the patients' knee joints when they stood up from a chair. In regard to the safety profile, a 52-week long-term drug administration study confirmed that LOQOA Tape possesses good tolerability for patients with osteoarthritis.

As a patch formulation, LOQOA Tape possesses a powerful anti-inflammatory analgesic action, and there are high hopes of it providing a new treatment option for osteoarthritis. LOQOA Tape was co-developed by Taisho Pharmaceutical and Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd.'s consolidated subsidiary TOKUHON Corporation. Taisho Pharmaceutical gained manufacturing and marketing approval for LOQOA Tape in Japan.