Verona Pharma appoints sector veteran Morgan as CFO

AIM listed drug development company Verona Pharma appointed sector veteran Piers John Morgan as chief financial officer on Monday, as the company prepares for clinical trials for its flagship drug.

Chartered accountant Morgan has 25 years’ financial experience and was previously chief executive of C4X Discovery, a small molecule discovery and development company.

He co-founded uniQure, a gene therapy company, where he spent five years as chief financial officer leading a number of equity and debt transactions. He has also worked at Phytopharm, BioAlliance Pharma and Arrow Therapeutics.

Morgan is currently a non-executive director at Quethera, a private gene therapy company and was non-executive chairman of Trino Therapeutics.

Chief executive Jan-Anders Karlsson, said Morgan “brings a strong track record and deep financial and public company experience” and his “broad experience and insights into international markets provide an excellent complementary skill set to the management team”.

In July, the company raised about £44.7m in a share placing to enable the company to accelerate the clinical development of RP554, a drug to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Karlsson added on Monday: “Preparations have started for the forthcoming phase 2b trials, with first clinical dosing expected in the second quarter of 2017. We continue to believe RPL554 has the potential to be an important new treatment option for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and possibly cystic fibrosis.”

Shares in Verona Pharma were up 5.34% to 3.45p at 0940 BST.