Verona Pharma plc
("Verona Pharma" or the "Company")
RPL554 Presentation at theAsthma and COPD Conference,
London, 14 April2015
London, UK, 14 April 2015 - Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP), the drug development
company focused on first-in-class medicines to treat respiratory diseases,
reports that the Company CEO, Dr Jan-Anders Karlsson, will be presenting at the
11th Annual Asthma and COPD Conference, taking place at the Holiday Inn Regents
Park, London at 13:30 today.
The oral presentation will discuss "RPL554 as a novel treatment for severe
COPD". COPD is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world, and the
prevalence is increasing. In the UK, COPD is one of the most common causes of
hospitalisation and more effective treatments are needed to reduce
exacerbations of this disease. The presentation supports Verona Pharma's view
that the emerging profile of RPL554 suggests that it could potentially become
an important addition to available treatment options both as a monotherapy and,
as a result of its unique mechanism of action, as a combination partner for
existing drugs for COPD. Verona Pharma has demonstrated in previous clinical
trials that RPL554 has the unique ability to combine potent bronchodilation
with broad anti-inflammatory activity in a single molecule. The Company is
initially developing RPL554 as a treatment for acute exacerbations in COPD,
where they believe it has significant potential in a market for nebulised
bronchodilator drugs currently worth $1 billion in the US alone.1
-Ends
For further information please contact:
Verona Pharma plc Tel: +44 (0) 20 3283 4200
Jan-Anders Karlsson, Chief Executive Officer
FTI Consulting Tel: +44 (0)20 3727 1000
Julia Phillips / Simon Conway
Notes to Editors
About the Asthma and COPD Conference
Asthma and COPD together create an enormous public health burden and an urgent
need for progress in disease understanding, therapy and care. The 11th Annual
Asthma & COPD Conference provide the opportunity to share in the experiences of
leading lights in the field who are addressing the challenges of solving the
riddle of pathogenesis, biomarkers and endpoints, personalising therapies vs.
the unmet need, tackling the causes and consequences of exacerbations,
development of new animal models and better tools for disease diagnosis and
monitoring.
This conference will give delegates invaluable insights into the key thinking
and advances in the respiratory drug market, focusing on the challenges and
solutions to enhance patient outcomes, providing extensive knowledge from the
key leading industry, academic and care providing experts.
Further information on the conference can be accessed via the following
weblink: http://www.smi-online.co.uk/pharmaceuticals/uk/conference/asthma-copd.
About Verona Pharma plc
Verona Pharma plc is a UK-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company
focused on the development of innovative prescription medicines to treat
respiratory diseases with significant unmet medical needs, such as chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and cystic fibrosis.
Verona Pharma's lead drug, RPL554, is a first-in-class drug currently in Phase
II trials as a nebulised treatment for acute exacerbations of COPD in the
hospital setting. The drug is a dual phosphodiesterase (PDE) 3/4 inhibitor and
therefore has both bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory effects, which are
essential to the improvement of patients with COPD and asthma.
Verona Pharma is also building a broader portfolio of RPL554-containing
products to maximise its benefit to patients and its value. This includes the
very significant markets for COPD and asthma maintenance therapy. The Company
is also exploring the potential of the drug in different diseases, such as
cystic fibrosis, where it is in pre-clinical testing and has recently received
a Venture and Innovation Award from the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
About Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Sixty-five million people worldwide suffer from moderate to severe COPD and the
World Health Organisation (WHO) expects COPD to be the 3rd leading cause of
death globally by 2020. It is the only major chronic disease with increasing
mortality. Currently available drugs are aimed at long-term maintenance
therapy, with the market dominated by large pharma. Despite the wide
availability of these therapies, COPD patients suffer acute periods of
worsening symptoms (exacerbations), which cause, in the US alone, some 1.5
million A&E visits, 726,000 hospitalisations and 120,000 deaths per annum.
Bronchodilating therapy is considered to be the standard of care, and agents
can be administered via handheld devices such as metered dose inhaler (MDI),
dry powder inhaler (DPI) and by nebulisers. The nebulised bronchodilator market
was worth about $1 billion in 2014 in the US.1 RPL554 is being developed by
Verona Pharma as an add-on therapy to the "Standard of Care" with the
objectives of providing rapid and pronounced improvement in lung function,
reduced symptoms and both shortened duration of hospital stays and reduced
re-admission rates 30 days after discharge from hospital. Studies to date on
RPL554 have demonstrated that it has a strongly differentiated 3-way mode of
action, being: (1) bronchodilation (the relaxation of smooth muscle in the
airway); (2) anti-inflammatory effects on cells and (3) ion channel activation
in epithelial cells, with increased mucociliary clearance of the airway.
References
1 IMS Consulting Group market research 2014