Scilex Pharmaceuticals, the developer of new pain medications, has raised another $2 million in a private equity sale to add to the $5 million it raised in a similar deal last year. The Malvern, PA, based company said that it had received an investment last week from Itochu Chemicals Frontier Corp, which has been working closely with Scilex, to help advise and develop its flagship product Ztildo.

Ztildo is a lidocaine patch which is still under development, made from a single layered analgesic tape. “It’s so thin, it’s like a Band-Aid, only it has lidocaine in it” said Anthony Mack, the CEO and co-founder of Scilex.

The new technology, licensed from an undisclosed Japanese pharmaceutical developer, creates a drug delivery system that allows the use of a much smaller amount of lidocaine than Endo International’s already established Lidoderm product. Endo, which is practically Scilex’s neighbor in Malvern, will lose patent protection on its product this year.

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