As the intense efforts to find a solution to COVID-19 finally start to bear fruit, how we’ve got here through countless rounds of fundraising has been a fascinating journey.
But it has also shown how one of the positives from this terrible pandemic is the development of a stronger small cap UK life sciences sector going forward, backed by a large retail investment presence.
Collaboration is key
The recent funding rounds, initially led with optimism over COVID-19 solutions, have not only allowed companies to develop internally but have heightened their reputations significantly enough to collaborate with global heavyweights of the pharmaceutical industry and therefore establish themselves for the long term.
For example, Open Orphan swiftly raised a vital £12m in May, which helped them ramp up their existing antiviral testing capabilities, which historically were used on in-house viral challenge studies, to offer to external third parties.
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).
