Open Orphan moves forward with government-backed COVID-19 vaccine human challenge study

Open Orphan PLC's (LON:ORPH) hVIVO arm has this week been confirmed as key player in the quest for a COVID-19 vaccine.

The business has just won a multi-million-pound UK government contract for human challenge studies, where healthy participants are exposed to the virus to get infected.

Usually, volunteers participating in vaccine trials are not asked to catch the virus but to go about with their day as normal.

In the case of COVID-19, participants will be required to follow restrictions as imposed by their local authorities.

Instead, hVIVO will monitor its patients 24/7, in a trial conducted at the 19-bed facility at London's Royal Free Hospital with help from researchers at Imperial College.

The first volunteers will enter the facility early next year, where they will be exposed to the virus so that the scientists can build a ‘challenge virus' to then use in the vaccine trials.