Mo Khan of Open Orphan: Final results show record revenues of £39.0m up 76% on last year

Mo Khan, CEO of Open Orphan #ORPH discusses their final results that saw record revenues of £39.0m up 76% on last year and a £9m improvement in EBITDA generating £2.9m from a £6.1m loss last year.

Financial highlights

·       Record revenues of £39.0m (2020: £22.2m) achieved representing 76% growth

·       £9m improvement in EBITDA generating £2.9m (2020: £(6.1)m)

·       Cash and cash equivalents as at 31 December 2021 of £15.7m (2020: £19.2m)

·       Significant EPS improvement in 2021 to (0.01)p per share (2020: (1.80)p)

·       Order book growth of 11% to £46m future contracted revenue as at 31 December 2021 (2020: £41.6m)

Operational highlights

·     Delivered a strong and growing pipeline of new challenge study contract wins

o  Served four of the top 10 global biopharma companies in 2021 among a growing client base of over 60 clients

·     Substantially expanded the Group's offering into the respiratory market signing an asthma study with a top three global pharma company

·     Completed the world's first COVID-19 characterisation study which was proven to be safe and well tolerated

·     Contract signed to manufacture a SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant challenge agent with Imperial College London, as part of a Wellcome Trust-funded initiative

·     Opened a new quarantine clinic on a capital efficient basis to facilitate the growing demand for human challenge studies. This new facility, The Whitechapel Clinic, added 19 quarantine bedrooms for future challenge studies 

·     FluCamp screened c. 84,000 volunteers for human challenge studies in 2021 (2020: c.68,000); supported by the cost-efficient expansion of volunteer recruitment centre

o  New London FluCamp volunteer recruitment centre - converted former coffee shop adjacent to the existing QMB facility

o  New Manchester FluCamp volunteer recruitment centre

·     Significant CRO experience added to the Board with the appointment of Yamin 'Mo' Khan as Non-Executive Director, who was appointed CEO post period end

·     In June 2021, completed a distribution in specie to the Company's shareholders, through the demerger of certain non-core assets into Poolbeg Pharma

Post-period end highlights

·     Commenced development of a new influenza challenge model for an existing top five global pharmaceutical client and signed a £14.7m contract for the characterisation and challenge trial to follow

·     £7.3m influenza challenge trial and £5m RSV challenge trial contracts signed

·     Launched a new Malaria human challenge model and was awarded by an existing Big Pharma client to act as a vaccination site for a Phase II field study

·     Opened a new primary FluCamp volunteer recruitment facility in Whitechapel, increasing bed capacity by 44% from 43 beds to 62 beds, and opened a new Manchester volunteer recruitment centre at the same cost as the old facility, but with four times the floor space, doubling the Group's volunteer screening capacity to 1,000 per week

o  Facilities expansion enables the Group to broaden the scope of the business to offer additional clinical trial services outside of its traditional core challenge study offering