Penwest Announces Preliminary Vote Count At Annual Meeting

DANBURY, Conn., June 10, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co.
(Nasdaq:PPCO) today announced the preliminary results of its Annual Meeting of
Shareholders, which was held today.

Based on a preliminary vote count, Penwest shareholders voted to elect as
directors Joseph Edelman, who had been proposed both by the Company and by Tang
Capital Management and Perceptive Life Sciences, as well as Kevin Tang, another
dissident nominee.

The Company also reported that, based on the preliminary vote count, the two
shareholder bylaw amendment proposals -- for supermajority Board voting and for
fixing the annual meeting date at April 30 -- did not receive sufficient votes
to be approved. In addition, the advisory proposal to immediately wind down the
Company's operations was approved, but only received approximately one-third of
the non-Tang-Perceptive shares voting.

The preliminary vote count is subject to the official certification of vote
results, which is expected to be provided by IVS Associates within the next
week.

About Penwest Pharmaceuticals

Penwest is a drug development company focused on identifying and developing
products that address unmet medical needs, primarily for rare disorders of the
nervous system. Penwest is currently developing A0001, a coenzyme Q analog drug
candidate for inherited mitochondrial respiratory chain diseases. Penwest is
also applying its drug delivery technologies and drug formulation expertise to
the formulation of product candidates under licensing collaborations with
partners.

Penwest Forward-Looking Statements

The matters discussed herein contain forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties, which may cause the actual results in future periods to
be materially different from any future performance suggested herein. For this
purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical
fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the
foregoing, the words, "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "intends,"
"potential," "appears," "estimates," "projects," "targets," "may," "could," and
similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
Important factors that could cause results to differ materially include: risks
relating to the commercial success of Opana ER, including our reliance on Endo
Pharmaceuticals Inc. for the commercial success of Opana ER and risks of generic
competition; the need for capital; regulatory risks relating to drugs in
development, including the timing and outcome of regulatory submissions and
regulatory actions; uncertainty of success of collaborations; the timing of
clinical trials; whether the results of clinical trials will warrant further
clinical trials, warrant submission of an application for regulatory approval
of, or warrant the regulatory approval of, the product that is the subject of
the trial; whether the patents and patent applications owned by us will protect
the Company's products and technology; actual and potential competition; and
other risks as set forth under the caption Risk Factors in Penwest's Annual
Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 11,
2009, which risk factors are incorporated herein by reference.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of
the date of the statements made. Penwest disclaims any intention or obligation
to update any forward-looking statements, and these statements should not be
relied upon as representing the Company's estimates or views as of any date
subsequent to the date of this letter.

TIMERx is a registered trademark of Penwest. All other trademarks referenced
herein are the property of their respective owners.

-0-
CONTACT: MacKenzie Partners
Investors:
Mark Harnett or Laurie Connell
(212) 929-5500

Kekst and Company
Media:
John Patteson
(212) 521-4800