Pharmaceutical company Vernalis plc (LON:VER) reported ‘slower than hoped for’ progress with the sales of its cough and cold drug Tuzistra XR, causing the company to look for alternative strategies for the US business.
Vernalis said that prescriptions of Tuzistra XR have grown steadily over the prior year in the current cold season, up 74% year-on-year for the first 33 weeks of trading and a number of commercial initiatives to accelerate prescription growth has been introduced.
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The company said it has been monitoring closely the week-on-week data but with 65% of the current cough/cold season complete, further acceleration in prescription growth is unlikely. Therefore, the total number of Tuzistra XR prescriptions for the current financial year is expected to be below guided range of 105,000 -11,000.
In the morning trading, company’s shares were down 12.2% at 5.10p.