AUY922 Abstracts Accepted for Presentation at ASCO

1 June 2012

LSE: VER

AUY922 Abstracts Accepted for Presentation at ASCO 2012

Vernalis plc today announces three abstracts under its Hsp90 collaboration with Novartis have been accepted for presentation at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, being held in Chicago from 1 to 5 June.

The abstracts can be viewed on the ASCO website www.abstract.asco.org/ConfCatView_114_S.html.

AUY922 is a novel intravenous Hsp90 inhibitor for the treatment of a range of solid tumours. It was the first compound from a collaboration between Vernalis and Novartis to enter clinical testing and has completed phase I trials and is currently in a number of phase II trials. Novartis is conducting and funding future development and Vernalis will receive milestones and royalties on successful development and commercialisation.

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About Vernalis

Vernalis is a revenue generating development stage pharmaceutical company with significant expertise in drug development. The Group has one marketed product, frovatriptan for the acute treatment of migraine, 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 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 are endorsed by collaborations with Endo, Genentech, GSK, Lundbeck, Menarini, Novartis, Servier and Tris.

For further information about Vernalis, please visit www.vernalis.com

Vernalis Forward-Looking Statement

This news release may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events including the clinical development and regulatory clearance of the Company's products, the Company's ability to find partners for the development and commercialisation of its products, as well as the Company's future capital raising activities. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual events could differ materially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors including the success of the Company's research strategies, the applicability of the discoveries made therein, the successful and timely completion of clinical studies, the uncertainties related to the regulatory process, the ability of the Company to identify and agree beneficial terms with suitable partners for the commercialisation and/or development of its products, as well as the achievement of expected synergies from such transactions, the acceptance of frovatriptan and other products by consumers and medical professionals, the successful integration of completed mergers and acquisitions and achievement of expected synergies from such transactions, and the ability of the Company to identify and consummate suitable strategic and business combination transactions.