8 October 2015

LSE: VER

Vernalis Plc ('Vernalis' or the 'Company')

Director Dealing

The Company has today received notification that, on 8 October 2015, the following Director of the Company exercised an option to purchase ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the Company ('Ordinary Shares') under the Company's Save As You Earn ('SAYE') scheme, then subsequently retained those shares, set out below:

Director

Number of options exercised

Exercise price

Ordinary shares held following the transaction

% voting rights

Ian Garland, CEO

45,918

19.6p

704,857

0.159

The SAYE scheme is an all-employee scheme comprising a three year savings plan available to all employees. The options were granted on 5 May 2011 and matured on 1 October 2015, and were subject to continued employment by the employee. The exercise price of options was 19.6p per Ordinary Share. 

-  Ends -

Enquiries:

Vernalis plc:

+44 (0) 118 938 0015

Ian Garland, Chief Executive Officer

David Mackney, Chief Financial Officer

Canaccord Genuity Limited (Nominated Adviser):

+44 (0) 20 7523 8350

Dr Julian Feneley

Henry Fitzgerald-O'Connor

Emma Gabriel

Shore Capital (Joint Broker):

+44 (0)20 7408 4090

Bidhi Bhoma

Toby Gibbs

FTI Consulting:

+44 (0) 20 3727 1000

Ben Atwell

Simon Conway

Stephanie Cuthbert

Notes to Editors

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 adult and paediatric patients 12 years of age or 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 over the last five years by collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies, including AKP, Biogen Idec, Endo, GSK, Genentech, Lundbeck, Menarini, Novartis, Servier Taisho and Tris.

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

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