Open Orphan plc (LON:ORPH), a rapidly growing specialist pharmaceutical services CRO and a world leader in vaccine and antiviral testing using human challenge clinical trials, announces its subsidiary Venn Life Sciences (“Venn”) has been awarded a contract for a study with Oxford BioTherapeutics, a clinical stage oncology company with a pipeline of immune-oncology and antibody-drug conjugate-based therapies.
This is a phase I, open-label, dose finding study which will be used to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary efficacy of OBT076, a CD205-directed antibody-drug conjugate, in recurrent and/or metastatic CD205-positive solid tumours and in women with CD205-positive HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
For this study, the Venn Paris team will deliver high-quality data management and statistics services. Venn’s team in Paris are highly regarded in the field as one of the leading providers in this area which is a perfect complement to the Company’s London offering. The study is due to start immediately.
Cathal Friel, Executive Chairman, Open Orphan, commented: “We are delighted to be in a position to announce another contract win for the Paris team. This deal further demonstrates Open Orphan’s ability to execute on its significant pipeline of contracts with important pharmaceutical businesses.
“Oxford BioTherapeutics is a clinical stage oncology company with a pipeline of first-in-class therapies aiming to fulfil major unmet patient needs by targeting difficult-to-treat cancers. The Venn team are looking forward to assisting with the study and providing the preliminary data required to advance this breast cancer trial.”
Dr Rahim Fandi, MD, PhD Oxford BioTherapeutics CMO commented: “We are delighted to work with Venn and are sure that Oxford BioTherapeutics will benefit from their expertise.”
Cathal went on to tell DirectorsTalk: Our Paris team have signed a new contract with Oxford BioTherapeutics, a clinical stage oncology company headquartered in the UK. For this study, which is due to start immediately, the Venn Paris team will deliver high-quality data management and biostats services. Venn’s team in Paris are highly regarded in the field as one of the leading providers in this area which is a perfect complement to the Company’s London offering.
We are delighted to see the Venn team continuing to sign regular contracts with both old and new customers which is a transformation since we acquired it back in June 2019. Despite having had to cut back the overall headcount in Paris substantially post acquisition to get it on a profitable footing for the first time in its history, we are delighted that the remaining team members are now highly motivated, productive, and are delivering great services.
The team is now not only providing these services to third party pharma customers but our Paris colleagues are now fully integrated to the overall Open Orphan business and are providing data management and biostats services to the London offices’ challenge study team. In the past, the London office outsourced data management and biostats to a third party provider, and as such would have lost a certain amount of profit margin through this outsourcing. However, the full profit margin is now being retained within the Open Orphan group and is incorporated into our overall growth profile and profits going forward.
