Open Orphan plc (LON:ORPH), a rapidly growing specialist CRO pharmaceutical services company which is the world leader in the testing of vaccines and antivirals using human challenge clinical trials has announced its subsidiary Venn Life Sciences has been awarded two new contracts.
CEO Cathal Friel told DirectorsTalk, “This RNS announces two very exciting deals that our Open Orphan subsidiary Venn Life Sciences has been awarded, from both our Paris office and Breda office in the Netherlands. The Paris contract is particularly exciting as it is working on a COVID-19 trial and will likely lead on to substantial more work following this initial contract. Likewise, the new contract signed with our Breda team is also a substantial contract and will deliver significant new revenues for Venn. These contracts prove that we have successfully integrated Venn and hVIVO into Open Orphan and we now have a very exciting, fast growing, profitable CRO on our hands.”
The first contract, which will commence immediately, is a COVID-19 study for a European pharmaceutical company which involves 200 patients in 50 sites across 5 countries around the world. Venn’s Paris team will manage the randomisation and supply management for this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 Clinical Trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a combination treatment of two drugs, and the best supportive care for patients with moderate and severe COVID-19 in a hospitalised setting.
Venn’s team based in the Breda office, in the Netherlands has also signed a contract with a European pharmaceutical company. The contract will see Venn assist with project management, design and implementation of new processes related to clinical development and use its expertise to deliver process improvement. The contract, which starts immediately, will run until December 2021 delivering significant revenues for Venn.
This contract builds on Venn’s existing relationship with this European pharmaceutical company whom Venn currently provides a variety of services to including IMPD writing, regulatory briefing book writing, preclinical and clinical consultancy.
Cathal Friel, Executive Chairman, Open Orphan, said:
“As we come towards the end of 2020, it’s wonderful to see all the elements of the Open Orphan business are delivering substantial revenues and both new contract wins and renewal of existing long-term customer contracts. The merger and integration of Open Orphan, Venn and hVIVO is very much now complete, and having become profitable in Q4 2020, we now have a very valuable, fast growing and secure business on our hands. Both Venn and hVIVO are converting their substantial pipeline of work whilst providing a high-quality service to their customers. The Paris team’s contract is a further demonstration of our work in the fight against COVID-19 and the contract win by our Dutch Breda team shows how we continue to generate repeat business through our expertise.
I am very excited by the momentum in the business and look forward to providing further updates in the weeks and months ahead of what is going to be a very exciting 2021″.
