finnCap have advised Open Orphan plc (ORPH), a rapidly growing specialist CRO pharmaceutical services company o/n it’s oversubscribed Fundraising of approximately £12 million.

The net proceeds of the Fundraising will be used to:

• Maximise available Covid-19 opportunities including accelerating the development of both a seasonal coronavirus and a Covid-19 virus challenge study model to capitalise upon Group’s inbound demand from Covid-19 vaccine developers globally. These challenge study models have the ability to speed up the development of a vaccine by 2-3 years

• Ramp up Covid-19 antiviral testing to the Group’s current capacity for 3,000 tests per day;

• Expand existing laboratory testing services to 3rd party pharmaceutical and biotech companies in line with our strategy of becoming a leading services provider to the growing viral, and respiratory diseases sector of the pharmaceutical industry;

• Strengthen the balance sheet to enable the Group to take advantage of the significant and growing opportunities the Board believes are available.