Cathal Friel, the executive chairman and co-founder of Open Orphan PLC (AIM:ORPH, OTC:OPORF), said independent investors have expressed an interest in acquiring £1.6mln of existing shares in Poolbeg Pharma shares, which should increase liquidity in the Open Orphan spin-off company.
The shares, which are currently locked up, could be bought at 5.9p per share – Friday’s closing price – when the lock-up period ends, which demonstrates that “independent third-party investors think the shares are cheap at this price”, Friel told Proactive.
Friel said Poolbeg has a lot of arrows in its quiver compared to the conventional biotech company where everything is focused on one, two or three products; Friel believes the conventional model “does not really work very well” because if those products fail, the company fails.