Open Orphan renews contract with major pharma company

Dublin-listed pharmaceutical services company says new deal will run for another year

Open Orphan executive chairman Cathal Friel.
Open Orphan executive chairman Cathal Friel.

Dublin-listed pharmaceutical services company Open Orphan has announced a contract renewal extending its consultancy services with a major global pharmaceutical client until December 2021.

Open Orphan, a European-focused, rare and orphan drug consulting services platform, is the result of executive chairman Cathal Friel reversing his pharma services business of the same name into Dublin-listed drug clinical trials manager Venn Life Sciences last year.

Through the Venn Life Sciences team in the Breda office in the Netherlands, Open Orphan provides chemistry, manufacturing and control (CMC) consultancy services to a leading global pharmaceutical client, and has done since 2012.

Venn’s CMC consultancy team provide “essential support” for two of this client’s vaccine development programmes, and these collaborations have been extended until December 2021.

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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.

“This contract renewal underpins our confidence in delivering against ambitious growth targets for 2021, and securing strong revenue visibility moving forward,” said Mr Friel.

“Open Orphan’s strengths lie in the established relationships we have with our pharmaceutical partners, and we expect to continue to extend these relationships as well as focussing on converting the existing pipeline of new business opportunities we have before us.

“Market consensus forecasts a significant increase in revenues in 2021. As we remain on target to be operationally profitable in the final quarter of this year, we also expect to see a significant impact on earnings next year from this revenue growth.”

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson is an Irish Times reporter