Verona Pharma PLC – Verona Pharma Strengthens its Clinical Team
Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP), a biopharmaceutical company focused on respiratory diseases, announces two senior appointments to its clinical team. They will lead the Phase 3 program for Verona Pharma’s first-in-class product candidate, ensifentrine, for the maintenance treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Nina Church joins as Executive Director of Global Clinical Development and Nancy Herje as Senior Director of Clinical Operations. They strengthen Verona Pharma’s clinical team led by Kathleen Rickard, MD, Chief Medical Officer, and will be based in the Company’s US office.
“We are delighted to welcome Nancy and Nina to Verona Pharma,” said Jan-Anders Karlsson, PhD, CEO of Verona Pharma. “They bring substantial expertise in respiratory drug development and a strong track record of planning and managing global clinical trial programs. We believe ensifentrine, with its unique mode of action and clinical profile, has a very attractive commercial potential. We plan to complete our Phase 2 program with nebulized ensifentrine with data expected around year end and to enter pivotal Phase 3 trials in 2020.”
Ms. Church brings 30 years of experience of late-stage clinical drug development in respiratory therapeutics, with 25 years at GlaxoSmithKline where she held a series of management positions, including Director, Global Operations COPD. At GlaxoSmithKline, Ms. Church was involved in the development of many respiratory therapeutics including Advair®, Anoro®, Flovent®, Serevent® and Ventolin®. She joins from Parion Sciences where she was Executive Director, Clinical Operations.
Ms. Herje has more than 25 years of experience in designing, planning and executing clinical programs for pharmaceutical and medical device companies including trials for the COPD therapeutic Flovent®. Prior to joining Verona Pharma, Nancy was a Senior Clinical Scientist at ExecuPharm and previously held roles at Chimerix, Aerocrine, Inspire and GlaxoSmithKline.