ORPH.L Regulatory News (ORPH)

4 August 2020

Open Orphan plc

("Open Orphan" or the "Company")

New Contract Win with Carna Bioscience ("Carna")

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 clinical trials is pleased to announce the signing of a new contract with Carna Bioscience (www.carnabio.com) for a First In Human Clinical pharmacology trial. The contract is expected to deliver significant revenue for Venn Life Sciences ("Venn") over the next twelve months.

The contract sees the Breda, the Netherlands office of Venn, a subsidiary of Open Orphan, provide Carna with a range of expertise such as PK/PD analysis and other services related to early clinical development. Carna is a Japanese company specialising in kinase biology, developing innovative treatments against cancer and immune disorders. This new contract builds upon several years of existing work during which both parties closely collaborated on drug development planning and pre-clinical activities.

In recent weeks, Venn's CMC team which is also based in Breda have won a contract extension to continue a Dutch biotech on CMC until at least the end of the year.

Both contracts are further evidence of Open Orphan's strategy to secure long-term partnership contracts which deliver recurring revenues for the business by working in close collaboration with high quality customers.

Cathal Friel, Executive Chairman of Open Orphan, said:

"This new contract with Carna further extends our relationship and demonstrates our ability to successfully service clients, resulting in repeat business. We look forward to carrying out this contract over the next year as we deliver on our strategy of generating recurring revenue through long term, service contracts."

For further information please contact

Notes to Editors - Open Orphan:

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. Which 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. In June 2020 hVIVO COVID Clear Test was launched, the most accurate antibody test available to UK employers, helping them to get their people back to work.

Open Orphan comprises of two commercial specialist CRO services businesses (hVIVO and Venn) and is developing an early stage orphan drug genomics data platform business. This platform captures valuable genetic data from patient populations with specific diseases with designated orphan drug status and incorporating AI tools. 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, as an integrated drug development consultancy, 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.

Notes to Editors on Carna Biosciences Inc:

Carna Biosciences is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of kinase inhibitor drugs to treat serious unmet medical needs in oncology, autoimmune and neurological diseases by inhibiting kinases that are important drivers for those diseases. Carna Biosciences was founded in Kobe, Japan, in 2003 as a spinoff of Japan Organon (Nippon Organon KK). Carna's initial focus was to develop an extensive number of state-of-the-art, highest quality reagents for kinase drug discovery, and has since established a leading drug discovery program with a significant collection of proprietary chemical libraries. For more information, please visit www.carnabio.com.