Press Release

Open Orphan has a great start to 2021 with key 12-month contract renewal

By Mark Sheridan

Share:

In This Press Release

  • Loading...
  • Want to see what you should be buying? Check out our top picks.

Open Orphan PLC (LSE: ORPH) has recently extended a contract with a top-three global pharma company.

Its Venn Life Services subsidiary, operating out of Breda, Netherlands, will provide chemistry, manufacturing, and control consultancy services to support the client’s non-COVID vaccine development programme. 

Venn has worked with the client since 2012, and its thriving relationship looks set to continue well into the future.

Executive Chairperson of Open Orphan, Cathal Friel, said in a statement:

“We are delighted to enter 2021 with another contract signed by the Venn team in Breda with this top-three global pharmaceutical client.”

“Venn is pleased to be continuing to work with this client in their vaccine development programme.”

“This contract demonstrates the depth of vaccine development knowledge across the company and, in addition to being the world leader in vaccine and antiviral testing using human challenge clinical trials, reinforces our position as the go-to clinical research organisation for many other services required by both large pharma and vaccine developers at all stages of development.”

The twelve-month extension will expire in December 2021.

Open Orphan is a rapidly growing specialist pharmaceutical services CRO, listed in Dublin, which, in June 2019, took part in a reverse takeover of Venn Life Services, before merging with world-leading vaccine and antiviral testing firm hVIVO in January of last year.

Comprising these two commercial specialist CRO services businesses, Open Orphan owns the only 24-bedroom quarantine clinic in Europe with an on-site virology lab, leading to its stellar reputation. 

It has certainly come a long way since being founded in 2017. In such a short space of time, it has made great strides and key acquisitions to cement its place in the industry.

Now, the company has a portfolio of eight viral challenge studies, made up of flu, RSV, HRV, asthma, cough, and COPD. Also, as announced in early March, Open Orphan is advancing several coronavirus studies to aid vaccine development. 

This most recent contract extension comes off the back of a hugely successful last month for the company. 

Its Paris branch won a contract to support a European pharma firm’s phase-2 clinical trial on COVID-19, while the Breda office signed another 12-month contract with a big pharma firm. 

Given the success last year and the prolific start to 2021, market analysts expect revenues for the group to top out at £38 million, with £7m in net profits. 

In a period of exponential vaccine development, brought about by the pandemic, the company has many opportunities to support big pharma companies in the future.

Share:

In this article:

Companies:

Author: Mark Sheridan

This article does not provide any financial advice and is not a recommendation to deal in any securities or product. Investments may fall in value and an investor may lose some or all of their investment. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Sign up for Investing Intel Newsletter