Verona Pharma PLC at TD Cowen Healthcare Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay, great. And yeah, as you said, I mean, you guys have had a fantastic first partial year. I guess, next it would be helpful to more qualitatively understand KOL feedback that you guys have been getting, promotional efforts on the team that are and are not working. So maybe try and see where you guys are focusing the most in 2025. Unidentified Company Representative Yeah, great question. I think, as we think about what we learned going into launch, as Dave mentioned, we had a significant unmet need that existed in the market. Over half of COPD patients are symptomatic with persistent symptoms like dyspnea, decreased activities, and potentially exacerbations. So the introduction of a drug like Ohtuvayre that provided bronchodilation and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory was very important to the KOL and physician community. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 4:10PM, VRNA.OQ - Verona Pharma PLC at TD Cowen Healthcare Conference What we've heard early on from physicians is tremendous feedback. I think what they've played back to us is what we heard in market research. And to be fair, we do -- I've done market research my whole career. Sometimes you go in a launch, and it doesn't match what your reps are hearing in the field. But it's matching or exceeding what we heard in that early stages of market research. And what the doctors are playing back to us is we have a significant unmet need. We have patients with consistent symptoms that are dealing with a progressive disease that doesn't stop. It doesn't go away. So at some point in time, we're going to have to add other therapies to these patients to help improve their lung function, help improve symptoms, and potentially reduce exacerbation. So they played back to us in these first nominally two quarters, the same things that we heard in that market research. What have we learned in the first six months? We've learned that our message is compelling; our message is simple. We don't have to tell the doctors a lot. We have to tell them that we have a novel MOA that provides bronchodilation and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory effects. And we have to tell them the safety profile. And some of the data regarding lung function and symptom improvement. When you tell them that simple story, they're very quick to adopt on patients that come into their practice with persistent symptoms. More than likely, the number one driver is dyspnea. So that's a trouble breathing. And so they add Ohtuvayre to those patients. So we've learned our message is very good. The other thing that we've learned is that doctors are creatures of habit. It takes promotion to call on these doctors and get them to move. And so what we've seen is repetition and consistent interactions with our physicians helps, one, create a new, writer, and then move a new writer from being what I would call a new writer to a believer. That's someone that we mentioned in the press release that's writing over 20 prescriptions within their practice. It takes frequency. And then the other thing we've learned is that doctors like patient feedback. So they want to hear how their patients are doing. So over the course of the last few months, we've worked on ways to teach our reps and also provide materials to our reps so that they can encourage and and illicit feedback back from the -- so the doctor gave feedback back on the patients they put on Ohtuvayre. Remember, many doctors may see a patient every two to three months, so we want to close that GAAP of time that they potentially don't get feedback from a patient that's going on Ohtuvayre. I think those are the main learnings. I mean, there hasn't been anything that has surprised us. I think we've been very pleasantly -- I think we've been excited about how consistent our early market -- not early, all our market research was with the execution we're seeing from the field today.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : For the ones that plan to write and haven't yet, what is the difference between the ones that have and have not yet? What dictates an early versus later adopter? Unidentified Company Representative There's a couple of things. Some is attitudinal. They're just at it -- there are some people that are just like human nature, some of us, we're the last to adopt an iPhone. There are some doctors that are just slower to adopt new technologies. The second is just frequency. Like we know that frequency with these physicians matters to get them to start writing. One would suspect that you call in a doctor once, and they automatically start writing. Well, human behavior doesn't dictate that all the time. So sometimes these offices are a little bit more closed from an access standpoint, and we haven't had the ability to get in there as many times as we want. But that's where our digital promotion is important because it allows us to supplement and kind of push the doctor down a pathway. We use digital promotion to actually give our reps future calls on doctors. So it -- if a doctor's interacting with us in a digital setting in a high rate, we can trigger that to a rep to say he's receptive to our interaction today. And it will help us be more efficient even on that rep interaction. So I think there, it really comes back to their overall attitudes on human behavior more so than the product of anything else.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay. And then, I guess, to follow up on that, can you tell us more about the types of patients that are being treated now? And are there a type of patients that are going to be harder to get into or is this really just a numbers game and getting more prescriptions? Unidentified Company Representative I think, I mean, right now, what we're seeing is -- let's start with what is the initial, like what is the initial hook for a doctor? It's about persistent symptoms. So our reps talk about persistent symptoms regardless of background therapy. And that's how you would treat because that's a moment in time where a doctor we know is making a treatment change because they're worried about persistent symptoms leading to something else. So then when this patient's prescribed with persistent symptoms, what does background look like? Today, about 50% of our patients are on background triple. And then the other half are on other therapies. So that could be single bronchodilator. It could be LAMA/ICS or dual bronchodilators. Additionally, we have patients where we're the only long-acting bronchodilator. One of the things that we've been very pleased about is that split early on. I think the hypothesis was that all your patients early on would be on background triple or a vast majority. But seeing a 50/50 split in the first two quarters really is showing that the doctors have this hope to be able to use Ohtuvayre air earlier in the treatment paradigm and use ICS in a place where it's potentially more appropriate there than it is today. We also see this in our doctors that are writing over 20 prescriptions. As they become a frequent or a believer, their use changes. Their use changes from all -- starting in triple to earlier lines of therapy. So I think what we'll see over the course of the next year into '26 into '27 is more and more patients. Your split will move to more of the non-triple patients, which shows the utility not only to Ohtuvayre there, but also the utility of what the combination product could provide in the future as well because you've essentially given the doctor a non-steroidal triple in that combination product as well.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : And how about earlier Lyme patients like pre-ICS, is that something that could happen sooner rather than later? Unidentified Company Representative It's happening today. We have patients on single LAMA. We have LAMA/LABA that are getting added to Ohtuvayre where they're foregoing putting an ICS on these patients and looking at the profile of Ohtuvayre. That's where I think the future is for the drug is like this. ICS is -- and I don't blame a physician today, like they haven't had many choices. And like today, now they have a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that allows them to properly put ICS where it says. If you look at the gold report, ICS should be used in a certain group of patients, but broadly, it's not really done today in that manner. So I think long term, that's definitely a place for Ohtuvayre.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay. And let's talk about dive a little bit more into 2025 outlook. So, without providing exact guidance, could you give us a better idea of what you expect for cadence throughout this year? Like, do you expect growth to be more linear, exponential, or what?

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay, and then I guess more specifically, for 2025, correct me if I'm wrong, but consensus is just under $300 million. I think it's around $270 million. How comfortable are you with that number being able to achieve that this year? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 4:10PM, VRNA.OQ - Verona Pharma PLC at TD Cowen Healthcare Conference

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay. So you think you could do better than that?

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Other than refills, I guess, what metrics should we be looking at throughout the year as you report your different earnings calls? Unidentified Company Representative Yeah. Okay, great question. We try to be transparent, tell the story, explain, through the numbers how the launch is developing. And I think you'll see that continue to evolve over the course of the year. We've given a lot of information on prescriptions and prescribers. We've touched a little bit on refill rates, so I think you'll see more about that in the future. And we'll continue to talk about prescriptions and prescribers. I think we'll get more to like a normal quarterly cadence. We've been giving some interim looks at the quarters. But I think in going forward we'll get to more of just a pure quarterly cadence over time.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : And what percent would you say would be? A good split between refills and new patients. Unidentified Company Representative At steady state like -- let's just take Trilogy today, 90% of their business is refills or more of existing patients. I would say that this is still the first full year of launch, so we've got to add more new patients. And as Dave said, there's millions of patients sitting out there that need therapy. So, I think new patients is a big focus, but the refills just continue to stack on the back end. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 4:10PM, VRNA.OQ - Verona Pharma PLC at TD Cowen Healthcare Conference

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Yeah. You said you don't need to achieve something like 80% market penetration to be a blockbuster. Can you give us an idea of the drugs that are blockbusters already? What percent penetration are they getting? Like what's a good comp to look at here? Unidentified Company Representative If you look at the data that Dave just talked about, the number one share of share in the marketplace and COPD is Symbicort right now, it has 22% of the market. Trilogy has about 12% of the market. So if you think about what Ohtuvayre profile is, Symbicort is a LAMA/ICS. Trilogy is a triple, like we look like those products. And except we're providing a different MOA, that provides bronchodilation and non-steroidal. So, I will say that finding a comp and COPD is hard because everything up until this point has been the same type of drugs. They've been recycled. reformulated LAMA/ICS. So I think what Ohtuvayre is bringing to the market is something they haven't seen in such a long time that it kind of throws all conventional comps out of the window. But the nice thing is -- like, one of the nicest things for our reps is they don't have to walk in and tell a doctor to stop doing something. They walk in and tell a doctor that they understand their situation, they understand they're faced with patients that are struggling, and we have something to help. We don't ask them to stop doing something. We ask them to add something that can provide an additional benefit. That is a very good place from a launch standpoint to walk in versus other launches I've been involved in where like, you gotta stop doing X to do Y. And that causes friction. We're walking in in a fairly frictionless place with these conversations.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : If there are no more questions on the Ohtuvayre launch, I mean, I guess we can ask, for ex-US updates very briefly because I do want to get to BE and the maintenance come up.

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay, great. So I want to spend the last few minutes, can you talk about expectations and timing of both the BE and the maintenance combo data?

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay. Thank you. So I guess I just have one more question that we can have you guys all expand upon in the last two minutes. But what do you feel is the most underappreciated aspect of Verona? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 4:10PM, VRNA.OQ - Verona Pharma PLC at TD Cowen Healthcare Conference

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Yeah, from the (inaudible). The question was to talk about patents and (inaudible)

Question: Tara Bancroft - TD Cowen - Analyst : Okay, with that, we thank you to the entire Verona team and everyone for listening.