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hVIVO PLC on Wednesday said it signed a £5.2 million contract with a ‘global biotechnology company’ headquartered in Asia Pacific in order to test their respiratory syncytial virus vaccine candidate.
Shares in hVIVO were up 8.6% to 12.70 pence on Wednesday morning in London.
The London-based contract research organisation, formerly known as Open Orphan PLC, said the unnamed company will use hVIVO’s respiratory syncytial virus human challenge study model for the testing.
The Phase 2a double-blinded placebo-controlled human challenge trial will take place at the hVIVO’s specialist quarantine facilities in London, and the trial will evaluate the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of the client’s vaccine candidate against the infection.
The study is expected to commence in the second half of 2023, with the revenue to be recognised across 2023 and 2024. As part of the study, hVIVO said it will recruit ‘healthy’ volunteers via its volunteer recruitment arm FluCamp.
This is the first human challenge trial contract that hVIVO has signed with a client in the Asia-Pacific region in over a decade, and the company said it marks a growth area for hVIVO as it plans to diversify its client base and order book.
‘APAC has been identified as a key growth region for the company, and this contract is an encouraging indicator that our strategy there is bearing fruit. I am optimistic that more biopharma companies in the APAC region will increasingly recognise both the value of human challenge trials, and hVIVO’s reputation as the ’go-to’ partner in the market,’ hVIVO Chief Executive Yamin ’Mo’ Khan said.
Andrew Catchpole, hVIVO chief scientific officer, added: ‘Although RSV has a low chance of causing serious illness in healthy adults, it can be highly virulent for children and the elderly... The hVIVO RSV Human Challenge Model can play a critical role in bringing these treatments to market more quickly.’
By Jaskeet Briah, Alliance News reporter
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