OREANDA-NEWS. Vernalis plc (LSE: VER; "Vernalis" or "the Company"), announces the appointment of Sandford (Sandy) Sommer as President & Chief Operating Officer, Vernalis Therapeutics Inc., effective from 2nd May 2016. The addition of this role to the senior management team is another step in the next phase of our evolution as a commercial specialty pharmaceutical company. 

Ian Garland, Chief Executive of Vernalis: "We are delighted to welcome Sandy to Vernalis at this exciting time as we build our US commercial operations.  Sandy's depth of experience in sales and marketing, as well as in general management, make him ideally qualified to lead our US operations through this critical period of multiple product launches and rapid growth."

"I am excited to be joining the Vernalis team at such an important time." said Mr. Sommer. "I am looking forward to the opportunity to contribute to the growth of the company?s US business and to help rapidly advance the company?s promising pipeline."

Prior to joining Vernalis, Mr. Sommer gained considerable experience during his 24 years at AstraZeneca, including increasingly senior roles in sales and marketing, and general management. Most recently he served as President of AstraZeneca?s Colombia operations where the business experienced rapid growth during his tenure.  Prior to Colombia, he served in a variety of leadership roles, including Global Vice President of CNS, Infection and Flu Vaccines. In the US he served as Executive Director for the Seroquel® Franchise, where under his leadership Seroquel XR® became one of the fastest growing atypical antipsychotics, and the team was recognized by Medical Marketing and Media as "Large Pharma Marketing Team of the Year." He has extensive experience building brands and has been instrumental in the success of some of the most successful brands in pharmaceutical history including Seroquel®, Nexium®, and Symbicort®. Mr. Sommer served on the Board of the UK Colombia Trade organization for the last two years. He began his career with sales and management positions at Astra/Merck.

About Vernalis

Vernalis is a revenue generating, commercial stage pharmaceutical company with significant expertise in drug development.  The Group has three approved products: Tuzistra® XR targeting the US prescription cough-cold market; Moxatag®, a once-a-day formulation of the antibiotic, amoxicillin, indicated for the treatment of tonsillitis and/or pharyngitis secondary to Streptococcus pyogenes in adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older; and frovatriptan for the acute treatment of migraine.  It has an exclusive licensing agreement to develop and commercialise multiple novel products focussed on the US prescription cough-cold market as well as eight programmes in its NCE development pipeline.  Vernalis has also significant expertise in fragment and structure based drug discovery which it leverages to enter into collaborations with larger pharmaceutical companies.  The Company's technologies, capabilities and products have been endorsed by collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies, including Asahi Kasei Pharma, Biogen Idec, Endo, GSK, Genentech, Lundbeck, Menarini, Novartis, Servier, Taisho, and Tris.