CRO hVIVO inked a 6.8 million pounds sterling ($8.2 million) deal with an unnamed pharmaceutical company to run a human challenge test for a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) antiviral drug candidate.
The study will be conducted at hVIVO’s Whitechapel facility in London and is expected to begin in the first half of 2024, the company said in a Feb. 6 press release. HVIVO, which was formerly Open Orphan, will recruit healthy volunteers through its recruitment arm, FluCamp.
In a challenge trial, healthy patients are deliberately infected with a virus to assess the efficacy of an experimental vaccine.
hVIVO plc (formerly Open Orphan plc) is a rapidly growing specialist contract research organisation (CRO) and the world leader in testing infectious and respiratory disease vaccines and antivirals using human challenge clinical trials, providing end-to-end early clinical development services for its broad and long-standing client base of biopharma companies.