Verona Pharma's shares fall as higher R&D costs widen FY loss

Shares in Verona Pharma sagged more than 8% as it turned in a wider full-year pre-tax loss of £8.9m, from a loss of £3.8m, thanks to higher research and development more than doubling.

Chief executive Jan-Anders Karlsson said Verona had made substantial clinical progress with its lead compound, RPL554, during the year. Shares in AIM-quoted Verona shed 8.27% to 3.05p.

He said this further highlighted RPL554's potential as an important novel and complementary treatment option for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other respiratory diseases.

"To date, over 275 subjects have been included in clinical trials with RPL554, which have consistently shown that the drug is well tolerated, generating highly significant and clinically meaningful data," said Karlsson in a statement.

COPD affected more than 300m people worldwide and to date there has been limited true innovation in developing better medicines to treat the disease.

Verona's research and development costs were booked at £7.3m, from £2.6m.