Speculation is mounting that Open Orphan, a clinical trial company headed by Irish dealmaker Cathal Friel, will move to spin off its stake in vaccine developer Imutex via a Nasdaq listing this year.
Through its hVivo subsidiary, Open Orphan holds a 49 per cent stake in Imutex, which develops vaccines for influenza and mosquito-borne diseases.
A number of shareholder bulletin boards are predicting that Open Orphan and Seek Group, its joint venture partner at Imutex, will look to cash in on the greater interest in vaccine development from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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).