Verona Pharma
plc
("Verona Pharma" or the
"Company")
Result of AGM
27 June 2016, Cardiff –
Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP), the drug development company focused
on first-in-class medicines to treat respiratory diseases,
announces that all resolutions proposed at the Annual General
Meeting (AGM) held today were duly passed.
A presentation on Verona Pharma made by its Chief Executive
Officer, Dr. Jan-Anders Karlsson,
will be available to view on the Company’s website
www.veronapharma.com. No new material information is provided.
-Ends-
For further information please
contact:
Verona Pharma plc |
Tel: +44 (0)20 3283 4200 |
Jan-Anders Karlsson, Chief Executive
Officer |
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N+1 Singer |
Tel: +44 (0)20 7496 3000 |
Aubrey Powell / Jen Boorer |
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FTI Consulting |
Tel: +44 (0)20 3727 1000 |
Simon Conway/Stephanie
Cuthbert |
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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