Verona Pharma Share Discussion Threads

[vasilis] 27/7/2016 10:41

Updated news today on the Digital Dose Inhaler Market :-



In terms of devices and companies supplying them in North America this is the salient paragraph :-

'North America held the maximum share of over 38.64% in 2015. This large share is attributed to the presence of several medical device players in this region, such as Johnson & Johnson, Cohera Medical, Inc., Teleflex Medical, Inc., Covidien Plc, and others. There are over 6,000 medical device companies domiciled in this region, which majorly consists of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, the soaring geriatric population count and the surging prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma and COPD, are few factors, among others, expected to positively reinforce the digital dose inhaler market over the forecast period.'

It would therefore be very helpful to know what exactly is Verona's commercial strategy with regard to any in-house developments in respect of DPI/MDI inhalers with so many players - large and small - already involved in North America.

[drradcliffe] 26/7/2016 10:33

New Edison research on VRP

"Verona’s £44.7m gross raise removes funding uncertainty, allowing the company to focus on the clinical progress of its respiratory asset RPL554, a dual PDE3/PDE4 inhibitor. RPL554 is in development in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis. Verona now has the resources to run a Phase II programme, taking it through multiple potential value infection points in the next 18-24 months, and has committed to raising further funds via a future NASDAQ listing."

Full report dated 26-07-16

[vasilis] 22/7/2016 14:58

I fully agree Tim and hope that Verona just do some work on a potential 'final' formulation and leave it at that for the time being. Doing anything further and getting involved with MDI/DPI inhalers BEFORE knowing who might be a potential partner just seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. Unless of course the BOD are announcing this development to continue to send the message to the market that Verona is prepared to go it alone if necessary if the right partner at the right price doesn't materialise.

[timbo003] 22/7/2016 12:28

I mentioned after the AGM that I wasn't keen on Verona getting too involved with developing MDI and DPI inhalers for RPL445 and this is one of the reasons why:



Big pharma will have their own ideas about devices and the optimal formulation/dose is likely to be device specific, so all the ancillary testing (stability, tox etc) will need to be conducted on the final formulation/ dose identified for the chosen device and Verona cannot choose the device for potential large pharma partners, they will choose their own.

[timbo003] 22/7/2016 10:10

>>jb

It's the general meeting today (11:00) to approve the new shares to fund the next stage in the clinical development program and hopefully pave the way to a Nasdaq listing.

[bewise2] 21/7/2016 18:42

Massive day tomorrow guys!

[shakin not stirred] 13/7/2016 23:54

Thanks Vasilis. I would like to see what the company makes of brexit as to whether it will potentially help or hinder us. Or no effect expected. As I have read that the headquarters for European medicine etc based in London may seek a new headquarters in another European city of which I believe Rome are pushing for it to be relocated their as I believe the president of the European medicine is Italian.Does anyone see a rise or fall on the admission of the new shares as we will have the cash and an excellent drug to balance the extra shares.????? Have to say personally happy that we have a new brexit dept being established and a trade dept, very swift and the new PM and her close advisors swift action can only help the perception that potential new businesses and established firms will feel they have a grip on the situation.

[vasilis] 13/7/2016 07:55

Shakin

If you look at the RNS dated 17 June announcing the new placing, it states :-

'The Placing is conditional upon, amongst other things, approval by existing
shareholders at a general meeting to be held at 11.00 a.m. on 22 July 2016 at
the offices of Shakespeare Martineau LLP at Allianz House, 6th Floor, 60
Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0HR (the "General Meeting"). Admission of the
Placing Shares to trading on AIM is expected to take place on 29 July 2016.'

A GM is required to approve the placing - which was oversubscribed - before it can be authorised. It's a done deal in our case but we still have to go through the actual mechanics of getting the 'blessing' of shareholders.

[shakin not stirred] 12/7/2016 23:27

The general meeting on the 22nd of July is that a regular meeting as I can only ever remember the annual general meetings each year, Is this a new additional meeting??? What is the agenda of the meeting. Sorry as I must have missed this info.

[timbo003] 04/7/2016 05:29

thanks shakin'

I don't think we had a question this year on when we may see significant value for shareholders, although I'm sure they mentioned some of the well worn standard industry valuation inflection points at some stage during the meeting.
Slide 15 of the presentation highlights 3 such possibilities:


* complete first Phase 2b study in 2017/18 provides very significant value creation opportunity

* DPI/MDI in COPD – very substantial upside potential with Pharma partner

* Cystic Fibrosis – upside commercial potential not yet factored in


I see that ADVFN had an outage on Thursday/Friday which resulted in quite a lot of bulletin board posts getting wiped, including my response to Digger's post #713, so I'll have another go at responding to that one (see below):

I'm still enthusiastic on the nebulized program (for both COPD and CF) but I have reservations about Verona going too far down the DPI/MDI route without a partner

Slide 14 suggests that they are going to spend £8.6m of the fund raise on DPI/MDI preclinical work, the problem I have with this is that any large pharma partner is going to want to use their own proprietary device with their own formulations and the optimal dose could be device and formulation dependent, so what dose and formulation will they be using for these studies (which will presumably include tox studies which can be expensive and take months to complete)? Whatever Verona do themselves on this would probably need to be repeated by a large pharma, so is it worth Verona doing it in the first place?

It could be that they are opting to embark on this program following feedback from their discussions with potential partners? If this is the reason, they didn't say that at the meeting when the question was asked, but would they tell us anyway? I am tempted to go along to the general meeting scheduled for 22nd July and probe this point a bit further.

[shakin not stirred] 02/7/2016 17:09

Cheers Timbo.
A drink awaits you and your feedback hugely appreciated. What is your personal intuition for the way you think his maybe played out or progress that moves the share price on Did no one ask when the "Significant value for shareholders" might happen whether he could narrow it down to a particular year or decade. Also they have said that they are speaking to other companies in the process to continue development. Did any one ask how meaningful these discussions are, at what stage they are and how many interested parties do these discussions involve.

Did you get any hints or indication of potential deals or partnerships from body language. Thanks again.

[vasilis] 28/6/2016 17:19

Many thanks Tim. I was unable to attend due to another meeting.

Regarding route to market, whilst the emphasis is of course on COPD and the proposed strategy for staggered NDA launches, there is still the question of the proposed strategy for CF once the ongoing clinical work starts to unfold. Since CF is clearly shown by Verona themselves as an orphan disease on slide 7, there remains the possibility of the company potentially applying for Fast Track status for RPL554 use in CF which could I suppose potentially revise current 'time to market' estimates. Plus, as stated in slide 16,the upside commercial potential of CF is said to be 'not yet factored in'. However, I would be very surprised if it was not 'factored in' to some extent when the various potential future commercial scenarios were modelled by those new investors in doing their due diligence. Otherwise, why invest money for trials in this area?

[digger18] 28/6/2016 17:17

Thank you again.

Would it be fair to say that you are still enthusiastic here and the AGM continued to reinforce you view ?

Do you think that they will try and take this to market in partnership or an eventual sale?

[joeblogg2] 28/6/2016 14:32

Yes thanks Timbo!!

[drradcliffe] 28/6/2016 13:57

I'd like to reiterate that. Thank you Timbo.

[lord buffett] 28/6/2016 13:37

Timbo

Many thanks for your time and trouble attending and reporting back from the AGM.