Theravance CEO Rick Winningham said the South San Francisco-based biopharmaceutical business is not splitting into two separate publicly-traded companies just because it could not find a buyer for its mix of registration-phase respiratory therapies – Breo and Anoro for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – and development-stage assets.
Mr Winningham told Scrip that the Theravance board of directors decided to separate the company into entities known as Royalty Management and Theravance Biopharma only recently as part of the board's normal duties, which require its members to review alternatives for providing the best returns to shareholders