Appointment of David Lescuyer as EVP Oral Business

Appointment of David Lescuyer as Executive Vice President, Oral Business

LONDON, UK, 13 April, 2016 - Skyepharma PLC (LSE SKP), the expert oral and inhalation drug development company, today announces that David Lescuyer has been appointed as Executive Vice President, Oral Business, reporting to Peter Grant, CEO, and joined the Group on 11 April 2016. 

David will be responsible for Skyepharma's Oral Business including, once the lease with Aenova has expired on 30 June 2016, the manufacturing operations in Saint-Quentin Fallavier, near Lyon, France ("Lyon Business").

Over the coming weeks, David will be meeting Oral Business customers as well as familiarising himself with the Lyon Business ahead of its return to Skyepharma. With immediate effect, Guy Vergnault, Vice President, Oral Drug Delivery Solutions, will report to David.

David, a French national, joins from Patheon Pharmaceuticals where he was Executive Director and General Manager, Patheon France and more recently Global VP, Operational Excellence. Prior to Patheon, David's career included experience with Fareva, Cenexi and Catalent in senior operational and general management roles. 

Peter Grant, Chief Executive Officer of Skyepharma, commented:

"We are very pleased that David has joined us and are sure that he will provide excellent leadership at this exciting time for the Oral Business, especially as the Lyon Business returns to Skyepharma in July. David has an excellent track record of improving financial and operating performance in pharmaceutical businesses and the skills to lead further development of the Group's Oral Business."

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About Skyepharma

Skyepharma combines proven scientific expertise with validated proprietary drug delivery technologies to develop innovative oral and inhalation pharmaceutical products. The Group is eligible for revenues from 16 approved products in the areas of inhalation, oral, topical and injectable drug delivery as well as generating income from the development of further products and technology licenses. The products developed by the Group are marketed throughout the world by big pharma as well as speciality pharmaceutical companies. For more information, visit www.skyepharma.com 

About the Oral Business

Skyepharma's Oral Business develops complex pharmaceutical products by applying its proven scientific expertise and proprietary drug delivery technologies for oral drug delivery. It generates revenues from 10 oral products, seven of which are manufactured by the Lyon Business. Skyepharma has a range of oral drug delivery technologies including Geomatrix™ and Geoclock™. These technologies are flexible and can be tuned to apply to a variety of pharmaceutical ingredients and match the need of a wide range of therapeutic objectives. Geomatrix™ provides versatility for the formulation of extended release products whereas Geoclock™ is an enabling tool for the formulation of chronotherapeutic products. Two innovative technologies for gastro retention are also in development - Soctec™ and Oleotec™. These are intended to address the issue of poor absorption of many orally-administered drugs which do not get absorbed in the lower gastro-intestinal tract by holding drugs in the upper gastro-intestinal tract for prolonged periods to ensure optimal delivery.

About the Lyon Business

The Lyon Business currently manufactures seven Skyepharma products. Five of these use the Geomatrix™ family of technologies: Diclofenac-ratiopharm®-uno, Coruno®, ZYFLO CR®, Madopar DR® and lower-dose formulations of Sular®. LODOTRA®/RAYOS® uses the Group's Geoclock™ chronotechnology and the other oral product, Triglide®, uses some of the Group's solubilisation technology. The Lyon Business has current good manufacturing practice ("cGMP") status, with approvals, amongst others, from the European Medicines Agency, U.S. FDA, ANVISA (Brazil) and KFDA (South Korea).