LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Pharmaceutical services company Open Orphan announced on Tuesday that, as part of opening its hVIVO laboratory services to third parties, it has signed three new contracts with third parties.
The AIM-traded firm said they included NoBACZ - a spin-out company of the University of Cambridge, as well as a new second contract with Nearmedic International, and a contract to run in-vitro testing from its laboratory for a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology company.

It explained that NoBACZ was developing an environmentally friendly antimicrobial, antiviral coating that would prevent common-touch surfaces from being a major source of infection transmission during and beyond the Covid-19 outbreak.

NoBACZ was working with hVIVO at its laboratory in east London to test its products against a range of viruses, including coronaviruses, and ultimately against SARS-CoV-2 - the virus strain that causes Covid-19 disease.

If successful, Open Orphan said the coating could be applied to high-touch surfaces in public transport, office buildings, hospitals, gyms, care-homes, and supermarkets.

It added that hVIVO also recently signed a contract to run in vitro testing from its laboratory for a Cambridge, Massachusetts based biotechnology company.

In addition, it signed another contract with Nearmedic International - its second in recent times - to support the development of a RegG3 drug as a treatment for Covid-19, followed by the expansion of that product into several disease areas, such as cystic fibrosis.

"We are now continuing to sign additional new virology services contracts with third party customers and, as such, this is delivering upon one of our key commitments from when we acquired hVIVO earlier this year that, as part of our growth strategy, we were going to expand the range of our service offerings to third party pharmaceutical and biotech companies," said chairman Cathal Friel.

"I am excited by this area of growth for Open Orphan as we seek to maximise the value out of our fantastic facilities in east London."

At 1226 BST, shares in Open Orphan were near flat, trading down 0.0001% at 11.5p.

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