Venn Life Sciences: Open Orphan signs major deal with vaccine manufacturer

Dublin-listed pharmaceutical services company Open Orphan has signed a deal with an unnamed vaccine developer through its Venn Life Sciences unit.The company did not provide financial details on the contract, which is described as "major", saying only that it built on earlier successful contracts between the companies.The deal covers obtaining and supporting market access of newly developed vaccines into the EU and US markets until the end of 2020."We are delighted to have signed this contract with a leading vaccine developer and one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world."This contract reinforces Open Orphan's position as one of the leading service providers to the vaccine industry globally," said Cathal Friel, executive chairman of Open Orphan."As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccine industry is now an increasingly important and rapidly growing sector with many large pharmaceutical companies now directing huge amounts of resources towards their vaccine divisions to progress both Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 vaccines.Open Orphan is ideally positioned to capitalise upon this trend as we build the company into a growing, profitable pharmaceutical services business."Open Orphan is the result of Mr Friel reversing his pharma services business of the same name into Dublin-listed drug clinical trials manager Venn Life Sciences last year. It later acquired London-based Hvivo.