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SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Opiant”) (NASDAQ: OPNT), a specialty pharmaceutical company developing medicines for addictions and drug overdose, today announced the appointments of Aziz Mottiwala as Opiant’s Chief Commercial Officer, and Rahsaan Thompson, Esq., as General Counsel, two newly created positions, effective September 16, 2019.

Mr. Mottiwala will be responsible for building Opiant’s commercial organization and pre-commercial activities, as appropriate.  Mr. Thompson will be responsible for all legal aspects of corporate strategy, intellectual property, transactions, compliance and regulatory matters.  Both Mr. Mottiwala and Mr. Thompson will report directly to Roger Crystal, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Opiant.

Mr. Mottiwala has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, across all areas of commercialization.  Prior to joining Opiant, he was Senior Vice President and Head of Commercial at Avanir Pharmaceuticals.  Mr. Mottiwala also spent over 10 years at Allergan, most recently as Vice President of Marketing for the company’s Eye Care Franchise.  He holds a B.S. degree in biochemistry from the University of California San Diego and an M.B.A. in marketing and finance from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.

Mr. Thompson joins Opiant with more than a decade of experience in corporate counsel roles, most recently serving as Vice President, Law, for Actelion U.S., where he spent the previous eight years. Prior to joining Actelion, Mr. Thompson worked for the law firm of Quarles & Brady in Chicago, Illinois, in addition to in-house experience at Abraxis Bioscience, LLC and McKesson Corporation.  He began his career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office.  Mr. Thompson obtained a B.S. degree from Southern Methodist University and his law degree from Hofstra University.

“Aziz’s experience in readying both large and small biopharma companies for commercialization will be a tremendous asset to our company as we continue to advance our pipeline.  His expertise will help us make decisions around the commercialization of our products and we are excited to welcome him to the team,” said Dr. Crystal. “We are equally excited to welcome Rahsaan as General Counsel. His breadth of knowledge in complex commercial transactions, corporate governance, and regulatory compliance, will be critical as we continue to grow.”

About Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing medicines for addictions and drug overdose. The National Institute of Drug Abuse, a division of the National Institutes of Health, describes addictive disorders as chronic relapsing brain diseases which burden society at both the individual and community levels. Opiant's first product, NARCAN® Nasal Spray, is approved for marketing in the U.S. and Canada by its licensee, Adapt Pharmaceuticals, now owned by Emergent BioSolutions Inc.  For more information visit: www.opiant.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed, implied or inferred by these forward-looking statements, and among other things, our ability to maintain cash balances and successfully commercialize or partner our product candidates currently under development. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "would," "expects," "plans," "intends," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "projects," "potential," or "continue" or the negative of such terms and other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. In evaluating these statements, you should specifically consider various factors. Additional factors that could materially affect actual results can be found in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 21, 2019, including under the caption titled "Risk Factors."  These and other factors may cause our actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statement. We undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release to conform those statements to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law.

CONTACTS:

For Investor Relations and Media Inquiries
Lisa Sher
Senior Director, Investor Relations & Communications
Opiant Pharmaceuticals
lsher@opiant.com
(970) 987-2654

Dan Ferry
Managing Director
LifeSci Advisors, LLC
Daniel@lifesciadvisors.com
(617) 535-7746