Pharmaceutical firm Open Orphan has today announced plans to spin out a Dublin-headquartered company focused on infectious diseases, called Poolbeg Pharma.
Poolbeg Pharma will list on the London Stock Exchange's AIM.
Open Orphan said that the funds raised as part of that admission will be used mainly to fund the clinical trial costs associated with the development of the company's product for a treatment for severe influenza and to acquire and develop new portfolio assets.
Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma, said the Covid-19 pandemic has placed the issue of infectious diseases firmly in the public eye.
Governments and international organisations are now investing heavily to ensure they are better prepared, he said.
"Poolbeg Pharma is aiming to carve out a leading position in this rapidly evolving and expanding sector. We have an excellent heritage in infectious diseases and a management team with a track record of delivering value creation," he added.
Cathal Friel, executive chairman of Open Orphan and non-executive Chairman of Poolbeg Pharma, said the new company is a great opportunity to maximise the potential of some of Open Orphan’s pharma assets which are non-core to its successful human challenge clinical trial business in a focused and capital efficient way.
"Poolbeg's approach to asset development should result in good licensing opportunities and excellent returns in a relatively short period of time with substantially less risk than the traditional biotech model and allow for regular investor newsflow," Cathal Friel said.
Meanwhile, Open Orphan today reported a £10.4m operating loss for 2020, despite its revenue growing six fold in the period.
Open Orphan assists in the development and testing of medicines - including Covid-19 treatments - and has rapidly expanded its business in the past year.
That saw revenues grow from £3.5m in 2019 to almost £22 billion in 2020.
The company said that after the acquisition of hVIVO in January of last year, 2020 was a year of transition for it with management integrating both businesses and driving improvements in revenue, gross margin and efficient overheads.
Open Orphan said it ended the year with a strong order book of contracted revenue which has been the foundation for its very strong start to 2021.
"In the context of the rapidly evolving Covid-19 pandemic and broader growth of the global infectious disease market, this should translate into very strong growth opportunities for the company going forward," it added.
Cathal Friel said the company is not simply satisfied to have returned to a positive operating position at the end of 2020 and to be targeting to deliver a full year profit in 2021, it is now focused to further enhance the quality of profits and earnings of the group going forward.
"It has been a remarkable year and I am grateful to our team for their hard work and loyalty," he said.
"The new financial year has started well and is already very well advanced. We are confident that the actions we are taking now to drive our core CRO business and monetise non-core assets should create significant value for all our stakeholders," Mr Friel added.
