Open Orphan renews contract with major top-3 global pharmaceutical client
(ORPH ) has today announced a further contract renewal with a major top-3 global pharmaceutical client, extending its consultancy services to end of December 2021.
The Company outlined that the Venn team in the Breda office in the Netherlands, will provide Chemistry, Manufacturing & Control ("CMC") consultancy services to this ‘leading global pharmaceutical client’ for one of the client’s vaccine development programmes.
Today’s news follows a previous contract renewal for work on two of the client’s vaccine development programmes with the collaboration extended until end of December 2021.
The extended contracts were originally signed back in 2012 for Venn’s CMC consultancy team to provide essential support for two of this client’s vaccine development programmes.
The specialist pharmaceutical firm said it believes the renewal demonstrates the repeat business that its Venn Life Sciences division continues to win from its long-term clients.
Venn’s CMC consultancy services focus on the strategic and technical aspects of pharmaceutical development and support the management of pharmaceutical development programmes covering small molecules and biologicals from chemical or cell line development up to submission of marketing authorisation application.
Cathal Friel, Executive Chairman of ORPH said, "We are delighted to enter 2021 with another contract signed by the Venn team in Breda with this top-3 global pharmaceutical client.
Venn have been providing CMC support to this top tier company since 2012 and are pleased to be continuing to work with this client in their vaccine development programme.”
Friel said the contract demonstrates the depth of the vaccine development knowledge and reinforces its 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.”
Shares in Open Orphan have increased by over 320% since the beginning of April 2020. Today’s announcement further demonstrates the strength of the Venn business for non-Covid CMC consultancy services and illustrates the depth of vaccine development knowledge within the Company.
In addition, it clearly reinforces the Group’s position as the ‘go-to’ CRO for large schemes of work from global pharma and vaccine companies, which presents Open Orphan an exciting opportunity to support vaccine and antiviral developers as they enter a period of exponential growth. Shares in OPEN have risen by over 15% in the past two weeks from 23p to close yesterday at 27.5p.
Reasons to Follow ORPH
Open Orphan is a rapidly growing Contract Research Organisation and world leader in the testing of vaccines and antivirals using human challenge clinical trials.
The Group comprises of two commercial specialist CRO services businesses, hVIVO and Venn Life Sciences and is also building out a valuable data platform business. All businesses are now working closely together to offer upselling and cross selling opportunities.
World Class Facilities
Open has Europe's only 24-bedroom quarantine clinic with onsite virology providing individually isolated rooms and specialist laboratory facilities. The hVIVO facility offers highly specialised virology and immunology laboratory services to support pre-clinical and clinical respiratory drug, antiviral, and vaccine discovery and development.
Largest Test Portfolio
Open Orphan has a leading portfolio of 8 viral challenge study models, which are: 2 FLU, 2 RSV, 1 HRV, 1 Asthma, 1 cough and 1 COPD viral challenge models. As announced in early March 2020, it is rapidly advancing several COVID-19 challenge study models and expects to be helping many COVID-19 vaccine development companies to test their vaccines.
No other company in the world has such a portfolio, with only two competitors globally having 1 challenge study model each. hVIVO also works with companies in the UK and Ireland to provide COVID-19 testing to staff to protect staff and customers from a workplace COVID-19 outbreak through its COVID Clear offering.
Rapidly Expanding Market with Regular Positive Newsflow
The market for vaccine development and testing has grown rapidly over the past six months, largely due to the outbreak of Covid-19.
However, Open Orphan now believes Governments and International pharmaceutical companies around the world will be making enormous ‘catch-up investments’ in all types of vaccine development to ensure the effects of any pandemic can be mitigated in the future, which should result in the hIVO facility being booked out for months, if not years, in advance going forward.
The Company is committed to providing regular Newsflow to ensure investors of all classes are fully briefed on the Investment opportunity for Open Orphan.
Planned Disposal
When Open Orphan acquired hVIVO in January 2020, hVIVO also came with a number of non-core assets including a 62.6% stake in PrEP Biopharm. However, the new Open Orphan Board and management team are primarily focussed upon cementing its position as a unique CRO and ‘world leader vaccine and antiviral testing using human challenge study models, and therefore earmarked all non-core assets for disposal.
The options for disposal of this unique asset are exciting, numerous and particularly timely given its mode of action. These options could include a trade sale to a Big-Pharma for cash, reverse the asset into the resurgence of listed SPACs and Cash Shells, or even Spin the asset out into a newly listed entity delivering investors dividends in specie of newly formed companies.
In any event, OPRH shareholders would do well to remain on the Shareholder register when this transaction takes place as, whilst the valuation of PrEP Biopharm is currently unknown, with little carrying value on the Open Orphan balance sheet, it should advance the share price accordingly.
Disclaimer & Declaration of Interest
The information, investment views and recommendations in this article are provided for general information purposes only. Nothing in this article should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any financial product relating to any companies under discussion or to engage in or refrain from doing so or engaging in any other transaction. Any opinions or comments are made to the best of the knowledge and belief of the writer but no responsibility is accepted for actions based on such opinions or comments. Vox Markets may receive payment from companies mentioned for enhanced profiling or publication presence. The writer may or may not hold investments in the companies under discussion.