London, England – October 20, 2020 - Open Orphan plc (ORPH), a rapidly growing specialist CRO pharmaceutical services company, which is the world leader in the testing of vaccines and antivirals using human challenge studies, is pleased to announce the signing of a contract by hVIVO, a subsidiary of Open Orphan, with the UK Government to develop a COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) human challenge study model.
The model development involves the manufacture of the challenge virus and the first-in-human characterisation study for this virus. The characterisation study, which is expected to complete in May 2021 and will require regulatory and ethical approval, enables identification of the most appropriate dose of the challenge virus for use in future human challenge studies, which play a vital role in helping to develop vaccines and antivirals for infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
The study will be sponsored by Imperial College London and conducted by hVIVO at The Royal Free Hospital’s specialist research unit in London, under the scrutiny of highly trained scientists and medics. hVIVO will also be expanding its Clinical Operations in London to facilitate work at this site.
Anyone interested in being contacted and provided with details about future COVID-19 human challenge study research, may leave their contact details at
www.UKCovidChallenge.com.
Cathal Friel, Executive Chairman, Open Orphan, said:
“At Open Orphan we are pleased to be working on behalf of the UK Government and in partnership with two great institutions, Imperial College London and The Royal Free Hospital. We look forward to working with our partners to develop a COVID-19 human challenge study model which will be used to safely accelerate the discovery of effective vaccines and antivirals against COVID-19.
We hope our work will reduce the impact of COVID-19 on individuals and communities, and our thoughts go out to the many people whose lives have been affected by the pandemic.”
Alok Sharma, Business Secretary, UK Government, said:
“We are doing everything we can to fight coronavirus, including backing our best and brightest scientists and researchers in their hunt for a safe and effective vaccine.
“The funding announced today for these ground-breaking but carefully controlled studies marks an important next step in building on our understanding of the virus and accelerating the development of our most promising vaccines which will ultimately help in beginning our return to normal life.”