SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 19, 2014) - VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: VSTAD), a biotechnology company applying pluripotent stem cell technology for drug rescue, drug discovery and regenerative medicine, today announces that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for Canadian Patent Application No. 2,487,058, entitled "Mesoderm and Definitive Endoderm Cell Populations." This patent, which is licensed exclusively to VistaGen by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, will further expand VistaGen's intellectual property portfolio for pluripotent stem cell culture systems that produce human cells of the endoderm lineage, including liver, lung, pancreas, parathyroid and thyroid cells.

Together with the Company's recently announced Notice of Allowance for related Canadian Patent Application 2,684,022, this most recent Canadian patent allowance strengthens VistaGen's intellectual property relating to several key pluripotent stem cell research projects the Company is contemplating in Canada, including innovative projects involving liver safety, liver toxicity-based drug rescue, customized drug discovery assays for therapies to treat liver disease and diabetes, and exploratory nonclinical studies for potential regenerative medicine applications involving beta islet cells and other cells of the endoderm lineage. 

About VistaGen Therapeutics

VistaGen is a stem cell company focused on drug rescue, drug discovery and regenerative medicine. We believe better cells lead to better medicines™ and that the key to making better cells is precisely controlling the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells, which are the building blocks of all cells of the human body. For over 15 years, our stem cell research and development teams and collaborators have developed proprietary methods for controlling the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells and the production and maturation of numerous specific types of adult human cells that we use, or plan to use, to reproduce complex human biology and disease and assess, in vitro, potential therapeutic benefits and safety risks of new drug candidates, including new chemical entities we are focused on producing through drug rescue. These are intended to be novel, proprietary and safer variants of once-promising small molecule drug candidates discovered, developed and optimized for efficacy by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, or academic laboratories, but discontinued prior to FDA approval due to unexpected heart or liver safety concerns.

Visit VistaGen at www.VistaGen.com, follow VistaGen at www.twitter.com/VistaGen or view VistaGen's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/VistaGen.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements in this press release that are not historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Those risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks related to the success of VistaGen's drug and regenerative medicine research, discovery, development and rescue activities, its ability to enter into strategic licensing and partnering arrangements, risks and uncertainties relating to its protection of its intellectual property, and the availability of substantial additional capital to support its operations, including the foregoing activities. These and other risks and uncertainties are identified and described in more detail in VistaGen's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These filings are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. VistaGen undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.