Article published in Drug Discovery Today

Open Orphan plc

("Open Orphan" or the "Company")

Article Published in Drug Discovery Today

Open Orphan plc (AIM: ORPH), a rapidly growing specialist pharmaceutical services clinical research organization (CRO) and a world leader in vaccine and antiviral testing using human challenge clinical trials, announces an article submission has been published in Drug Discovery Today, a print and online trade magazine with an emphasis on the science which underpins drug discovery and development. The published editorial is titled "Modelling the World - can deliberately infecting healthy volunteers really tell us much about what happens outside the clinic during an epidemic or pandemic?"

The article was written by Adrian Wildfire, Director of Scientific and Business Strategy at hVIVO, part of Open Orphan plc. Adrian is a specialist in the fields of virology, medical microbiology and parasitology.

The article explores what can be learned from using the method of human challenge trials to support vaccine development, and focuses on the role hVIVO plays in this, in particular in relation to COVID-19. hVIVO has a long history of successfully delivering human challenge studies at their state-of-the-art quarantine facility in East London.

To view the article, please follow the link: https://bit.ly/3nLct9Q

Interested in becoming a volunteer?

hVIVO recruits many of its volunteers for its challenge study clinical trials through its dedicated volunteer recruitment website, www.flucamp.com. hVIVO welcomes volunteers under expertly supervised conditions, to further medical research, and help us to take the understanding of respiratory illnesses to a new level. Volunteers are central to the work that we do; our studies focus on testing new treatments on real people, in a safe, controlled, clinical environment.

Further details on all aspects of our volunteer programs including testimonials from previous volunteers can be found at www.flucamp.com.

If you are interested in being contacted and provided with details about future COVID-19 human challenge study research, please leave your contact details at www.UKCovidChallenge.com.

For further information please contact:

About Open Orphan (www.openorphan.com)

Open Orphan is a rapidly growing niche CRO pharmaceutical services company which is a world leader in the testing of vaccines and antivirals through the use of human challenge clinical trials. Conducted from Europe's only 24-bedroom quarantine clinic with onsite virology providing individually isolated rooms and connected to our specialist laboratory facility. hVIVO's challenge studies require healthy volunteers to take part, volunteers are recruited through FluCamp, learn more at www.FluCamp.com. 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.  Reliable laboratory analysis underpinned by scientific expertise is essential when processing and analysing clinical samples. Robust quality processes support our team of scientists in the delivery of submission ready data.

The Company 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, Open Orphan is rapidly advancing a number of Coronavirus 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. 

Open Orphan comprises of two commercial specialist CRO services businesses, hVIVO  and  Venn Life Sciences and is also building out a valuable data platform business. hVIVO has built up one of the world's largest databases of infectious disease progression data and we are populating our Open Orphan Health Data platform with this historical hVIVO data. In our clinical trials going forward, we are also planning to collect data on volunteers via wearables during clinical trials. Therefore, Open Orphan's data, which may yield valuable digital biomarkers, could be one of the more sought-after datasets by many of the large wearables /smart watch wearables providers around the world. In June 2019, Open Orphan acquired AIM-listed Venn Life Sciences Holdings plc in a reverse take-over and in January 2020 it completed the merger with hVIVO plc. Venn is an integrated drug development consultancy firm which offers CMC (chemistry, manufacturing and controls), preclinical, Phase I & II clinical trials design and execution. The merger with hVIVO created a European full pharma services company broadening the Company's customer base and with complementary specialist CRO services, widened the range of the Company's service offerings.

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