Verona Pharma PLC 2014 Annual Report and Accounts and Notice of AGM (9910M)

TIDMVRP

RNS Number : 9910M

Verona Pharma PLC

13 May 2015

Verona Pharma plc

("Verona Pharma" or the "Company")

2014 Annual Report and Accounts

and

Notice of AGM

13 May 2015, Cardiff- Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP), the drug development company focused on first-in-class medicines to treat respiratory diseases, confirms that it has made available the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014 ("2014 Annual Report and Accounts"). The report is available online at: http://www.veronapharma.com/joomla/index.php/investors/financial-performance.

A hard copy of the 2014 Annual Report and Accounts, the Notice of AGM ("AGM") and a Form of Proxy will be posted to Shareholders on 15 May 2015.

The AGM is to be held at 10:30am on 11 June 2015 at the offices of SGH Martineau LLP, 5th Floor, One America Square, Crosswall, London EC3N 2SG.

-Ends-

For further information please contact:

 
  Verona Pharma plc             Tel: +44 (0) 20 3283 
                                 4200 
  Jan-Anders Karlsson, Chief 
   Executive Officer 
 
  N+1 Singer                    Tel: +44 (0)20 7496 3000 
  Aubrey Powell / Jen Boorer 
 
  FTI Consulting                Tel: +44 (0)20 3727 1000 
  Julia Phillips / Simon 
   Conway

Notes to Editors

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.

(1) IMS Consulting Group market research 2014

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

NOAGGGDUGGBBGUX

Verona Pharma (LSE:VRP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024