Britain said on Tuesday it would back “human challenge” trials, where young and healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with Covid-19, to accelerate the development of vaccines for the disease.
The government said it would invest 33.6 million pounds ($43.5 million) in the studies in partnership with Imperial College London, laboratory and trial services company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
If approved by regulators and an ethics committee, the studies would start in January with results expected by May 2021, the government said.
Open Orphan (LON:ORPH) was founded in 2017, with the goal of rapidly building Europe’s leading pharma services company by a management team with extensive industry and financial expertise. The company comprises of two commercial specialist CRO services businesses (Venn Life Sciences and hVIVO) and is also developing a genomics data platform business (Genomic Health Data).