Verona Pharma plc announced the expansion of its global clinical development team with the appointment of Kathleen Rickard, MD, as Chief Medical Officer, and Tara Rheault, PhD, MPH, as Vice President of Research and Development Operations and Global Project Management. Drs. Rickard and Rheault will be based in the company’s U.S. offices from where they will leverage their expertise to help drive global R&D activities. Dr. Rickard is expected to start in her role on February 1, 2019 and Dr. Rheault started in her role on January 1, 2019. Prior to joining Verona Pharma, Dr. Rickard served in multiple roles at Aerocrine AB and subsequently Circassia, where she was instrumental in directing clinical and regulatory strategies for NIOX VERO, an airway inflammation test for managing asthma, across key markets such as the United States, China, and Japan, as well as the rest of the world. Previously, Dr. Rickard was Vice President Clinical Development and Medical Affairs of GlaxoSmithKline’s Respiratory Medicines Development Centre and, over a period of 15 years, held a number of other leadership positions in clinical development across GlaxoSmithKline’s global respiratory franchise. Dr. Rheault has more than 16 years of cross-functional leadership experience across drug discovery and development. Prior to joining Verona Pharma, she was a strategic drug development leader at IQVIA where she helped pharmaceutical companies develop integrated commercial and R&D strategies, including work on the Company’s RPL554 program. Dr. Rheault started her career as a medicinal chemist at GlaxoSmithKline, where she was the inventor of the now marketed drug Tafinlar®. She then moved on to global project leadership and portfolio management for early development projects, building integrated early R&D and commercial strategies for new dermatology products, before transitioning into late stage clinical development in the respiratory therapy area as a clinical program and study leader, contributing to Nucala, Incruse, Breo and Anoro late stage development programs, in addition to other novel programs.