Verona Pharma plc (NASDAQ:VRNA) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So all this work is essential to ensure that smooth transition from product to patients and then the physician uptake at launch.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thank you so much, Chris. I’ll jump back into the queue.

Operator: The next question comes from Andreas Argyrides from Wedbush. Please, go ahead.

Andreas Argyrides: Hi, good morning guys and thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the progress as well. Just two from us to start here, what additional analyses from ENHANCE we expect to see at ERS and CHEST? And then can you provide any updates on where you stand with the combination product to ensifentrine and LAMA. Is there a certain amount that you think will best in conjunction with ascension? Thanks.

Christopher Martin: Hi, good morning. Thanks Andreas. Yes, so let me take the second one first, and then I’ll turn it over to Kathy to talk about ERS and CHEST. We continue to work on a combination nebulized product, a LAMA plus ensifentrine , which we think will work extremely well, well suited for the COPD space, give us a dual bronchodilator as well as anti-inflammatory in a nebulized delivery. So as far as the next product, we think that, that makes a lot of sense. We are currently in the earlier stages of formulation development, making sure that we have a formulation that can stand up and be stable, of course, before we launch into clinical activities. We’ll be much more informed on that later this year. And so I think as we get towards the end of 2023, we’ll be articulating where we are with that, a little bit clear for everyone as well as our plans for 2024 in that development.

So I would stand by for that. And then, Kathy, you want to comment on ERS and CHEST.

Kathleen Rickard: Sure. So I’ll take ERS first. So for ERS, which is going to be in the early to mid-part of September, we have a number of abstracts — the first abstract is the 48-week exacerbation data, again, further confirming that over 48-weeks, we continue to see a 44% decrease in exacerbation’s rate and a 52% decrease in risk, which is the time the prefers — that is a poster presentation. We have an oral presentation, again, looking at health and resource utilization and more severe exacerbations. And again, we continue to show, again, the decrease in rate and risk of exhausted basis, but we’re also showing the decrease in position of visits and hospitalizations over the 24-weeks of the study. And for CHEST, which is in October, we have a couple of abstracts being shown.

These are all in a — somewhat of a short-form oral format — so we have the full results by exacerbation history, again, demonstrating that the — despite exacerbation history, we continue to see a strong decrease in exacerbations and then side-by-side symptoms from the 2 Pivotal trials, which again show consistently that we are able to decrease symptoms in these 2 trials. We also have a full efficacy data looking at whether patients were originally on LAMA or LABA again, demonstrating that equal efficacy occurs, whether they’re on LAMA or LABA. And then lastly, there’s a pooled safety from both large studies, again, showing the consistency of our very good safety profile. So those are the ones that you’ll expect to see at the ERS and CHEST.

Andreas Argyrides: Okay. Great. Thanks for all the color. What’s going on, looking for hard to progress? So I’ll back in the queue. Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Andrew Tsai from Jefferies. Please go ahead.