(Alliance News) - Verona Pharma PLC on Tuesday said its loss widened considerably in the third quarter of 2019, dragged down as research & development costs more than doubled.
Shares in Verona were down 9.5% at 41.20 pence in London on Tuesday morning.
For the three months ended September 30, Verona's pretax loss came to GBP12.8 million, more than three times the GBP3.5 million loss posted the the year before.
This substantial change was due mostly to R&D costs, which ballooned to GBP12.0 million from GBP5.3 million. Verona's general & administrative costs also rose, climbing 43% to GBP2.0 million from GBP1.4 million.
For the nine months to September 30, pretax loss widened to GBP33.7 million from GBP18.3 million after a more than doubling of R&D costs to GBP27.8 million from GBP13.6 million and a 28% increase in general & administrative costs to GBP5.9 million from GBP4.6 million.
At the end of September, Verona had net cash, cash equivalents, and short term investments totalling GBP41.1 million versus GBP64.7 million at the end of 2018.
During the quarter, Verona reported positive results from its phase 2 study of the dry powder inhaler formulation of ensifentrine in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. COPD includes various lung diseases like severe asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.
In October, the firm completed enrolment in a phase 2b study of "nebulized ensifentrine as an add-on to inhaled tiotropium, a long acting bronchodilator, in patients with moderate-to-severe COPD."
Chief Executive Jan-Anders Karlsson said: "We are very pleased that our four-week phase 2b dose-ranging clinical trial with nebulized ensifentrine is progressing according to plan and that we have completed enrollment of over 400 symptomatic patients with moderate to severe COPD. We anticipate completing this study around the end of 2019. Informed by this and prior studies in around 850 subjects, we plan to advance into our phase 3 clinical trial program which we expect to commence in 2020 following an end of phase 2 meeting with the [US Food & Drug Administration]."
Karlsson added: "Initially we will focus on nebulized treatment for more severe patients but we are very excited by the positive [dry powder inhaler] formulation results that support our view that ensifentrine is an effective bronchodilator in COPD patients, whether administered as a dry powder via a handheld inhaler or as a suspension via a nebulizer."
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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