Vista Partners Initiates Coverage on MediciNova Inc. (Nasdaq: MNOV)

    LOS ANGELES, July 16 /EMWNews/ -- Vista Partners announced

today that it has initiated coverage on MediciNova Inc. (Nasdaq: MNOV).

"MediciNova has a promising drug development pipeline for treating a

variety of diseases and conditions. The Company is primarily focused on two

drug development programs; the first is MN-221 for the treatment of Status

Asthmaticus. There are an estimated 2,000,000 visits to the emergency room

a year for asthma related difficulties. The market for treatment of asthma

related difficulties is in the billions and we believe MN-221, if approved,

will garner a sizable percentage of the market potentially resulting in

hundreds of millions of dollars in sales for MediciNova. The second drug in

development is MN-166 for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is

believed to affect approximately 350,000 to 400,000 people in the United

States and over 2.5 million globally. Worldwide sales of drugs used in the

treatment of MS were approximately $7.2 billion in 2006," said Ross Silver,

Director of Research for Vista Partners. For more information and to

download the report, please visit the Vista Partners website at

http://www.vistap.com and click on the download research icon.

    About Vista Partners:



    Vista Partners provides independent, equity research to institutional

and individual investors, with a focus on publicly traded small

capitalization companies. With offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco,

Vista Partners is one of the fastest growing independently owned equity

research firms. Vista Partners professional staff has backgrounds in

finance, corporate communications and investment banking. More information

is available at http://www.vistap.com.



    About MediciNova, Inc.:



    MediciNova, Inc. is a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company focused

on acquiring and developing novel, small-molecule therapeutics for the

treatment of diseases with unmet medical need with a specific focus on the

U.S. market. Through strategic alliances primarily with Japanese

pharmaceutical companies, MediciNova holds rights to a diversified

portfolio of clinical and preclinical product candidates, each of which

MediciNova believes has a well-characterized and differentiated therapeutic

profile, attractive commercial potential and patent assets having claims of

commercially adequate scope. MediciNova's pipeline includes six

clinical-stage compounds for the treatment of status asthmaticus, multiple

sclerosis, asthma, interstitial cystitis, solid tumor cancers, Generalized

Anxiety Disorder, preterm labor and urinary incontinence and two

preclinical-stage compounds for the treatment of thrombotic disorders.

MediciNova's current strategy is to focus its resources on the development

and commercialization of two prioritized assets in its development

pipeline: MN-221 for the treatment of status asthmaticus, an acute, severe

asthma attack, and MN-166 for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

MediciNova will seek to monetize its other product candidates at key value

inflection points. For more information on MediciNova, Inc., please visit

http://www.medicinova.com.






     Contact:

     Vista Partners LLC

     Sherry Watkins

     (310)744-5268

     [email protected]

     http://www.vistap.com