Andrew Fisher Joins Verona Pharma as General Counsel

LONDON and RALEIGH, N.C., March 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verona Pharma plc (Nasdaq: VRNA) (“Verona Pharma” or the “Company”), announces Mr. Andrew Fisher has today joined the Company as General Counsel, and member of the Executive Management Team.

Mr. Fisher is an accomplished lawyer with more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry. He brings a wealth of legal and strategic expertise supporting global, pre-clinical and clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization including launching four pulmonary therapies. Most recently, he founded and led a consulting practice focused on providing strategic advice to start-up companies. Previously, from 2001 until 2018, he was an early team member at United Therapeutics Corporation where he served for 17 years holding roles of increasing responsibility including Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Deputy General Counsel while leading successful patent defense strategy. During this period, the company grew from an early-stage business to a company with 850 employees, a market capitalization of $4.7 billion and five marketed products. He has a JD from George Washington University and a BA from University of Michigan.

“We are delighted to welcome Andy to Verona,” said David Zaccardelli, Pharm. D., President and Chief Executive Officer. “His broad expertise and leadership spanning all areas of legal affairs in commercial life sciences and intellectual property portfolio management and strategy will be highly valuable as we finalize preparations for the planned US commercialization of ensifentrine, if approved, later this year.”

Verona Pharma also announces that Ms. Claire Poll is retiring as General Counsel, effective March 4, 2024.

Dr. Zaccardelli added: “We would like to thank Claire for her leadership and recognise her significant contributions to Verona Pharma’s successful development since its inception. During this time, she played a key role in the Company’s growth by providing guidance through our NASDAQ listing, several financings and the progression of our novel product candidate, ensifentrine, through clinical trials into review for potential US approval.”

For further information please contact:

About Verona Pharma

Verona Pharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapies for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases with significant unmet medical needs. If successfully developed and approved, Verona Pharma’s product candidate, ensifentrine, has the potential to become the first inhaled non-steroidal therapy for the treatment of respiratory diseases that combines bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory activities in one molecule. The Company has evaluated nebulized ensifentrine in its Phase 3 clinical program ENHANCE (“Ensifentrine as a Novel inHAled Nebulized COPD thErapy”) for COPD maintenance treatment. Ensifentrine met the primary endpoint in both ENHANCE-1 and ENHANCE-2 trials demonstrating statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in lung function. In addition, ensifentrine substantially reduced the rate and risk of COPD exacerbations in pooled analysis from ENHANCE-1 and ENHANCE-2. In the third quarter of 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration accepted for review the Company’s NDA for ensifentrine for the maintenance treatment of patients with COPD and assigned a PDUFA target action date of June 26, 2024. Two additional formulations of ensifentrine have been evaluated in Phase 2 trials for the treatment of COPD: dry powder inhaler (“DPI”) and pressurized metered-dose inhaler (“pMDI”). Ensifentrine has potential applications in cystic fibrosis, non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, asthma and other respiratory diseases. For more information, please visit

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from our expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of this press release. While we may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.