BRIEF—Vernalis looking for a buyer of the company

Further to the company’s announcement on February 28, 2018, UK-based Vernalis, management has admitted it has run out of options and decided to put the business up for sale, with the firm’s shares dropping 12.5% to 2.80 pence on Friday.

The board announced that, as part of the strategic review, it has decided to seek offers for the company and has appointed Evercore as its financial adviser for this process.

The UK Panel on Takeovers and Mergers has agreed that any discussions with third parties may be conducted within the context of a "formal sale process."

The board has undertaken a detailed evaluation of alternative forms of restructuring and has concluded that it is not financially viable to sustain Vernalis’ independent US commercial sales and marketing operation. Consequently, with immediate effect, the company will begin to wind down its US commercial business including ceasing direct promotion of Tuzistra XR (codeine polistirex and chlorpheniramine polistirex) to physicians at the end of the current cough cold season and will close its US Commercial business by the end of September 2008.

The group has invested heavily in its US commercial platform in a bid to accelerate sales of its first cough and cold medicine, Tuzistra. The group’s two new drugs have also proven more costly to commercialize than previously expected.