Call it the Friel good factor. Over the course of the last decade, the dealmaker Cathal Friel has earned a reputation as a magician of the microcaps. He has popped out stock market companies, one after another, since taking control of a moribund Fastnet Oil & Gas and divesting its exploration assets in 2015.
Friel first reversed Amryt Pharma, a developer of so-called orphan drugs, into Fastnet. Amryt then spun out some of its portfolio into a new entity, Open Orphan, which listed on the Alternative Investment Market.
Open Orphan then merged, first with Venn Life Sciences, which did clinical trials for smaller drug companies, and then the London company hVivo, whose assets included a state-of-the-art human trials clinic in London. Open Orphan was renamed
