Through strategic investment and operational integration, hVIVO is pioneering a new era of innovative drug development
As the demands of clinical development continue to intensify and the need for speed and precision grows ever greater, hVIVO has firmly positioned itself as a purpose-built innovator for the future of modern drug development. Combining full-service early phase CRO capabilities with world-leading human challenge trial expertise, hVIVO delivers decisive human data that enables biopharma and emerging biotech companies to move from strategy to clinical proof-of-concept faster and with greater certainty.
With dedicated teams, A-list laboratories, study recruitment, consultancy, and biobanking within a single operational model, hVIVO is streamlining drug development pathways whilst reducing complexity and risk. As the organization continues to broaden its horizons, Manufacturing Today sits down with Dr. Andrew Catchpole, Chief Scientific Officer at hVIVO, to learn more about the driving forces behind the company’s operational strength and uncover its most recent developments.
“The business started back in 1989. At that point, it was solely a lab business testing HIV drugs, initially called Retroscreen Virology,” Andrew begins, providing insight into hVIVO’s background. “Back in the late 1980s, HIV was a massive research field, so we saw big pharma take a lot of that research internal. We started focusing on influenza and soon became specialists in that, and, in 2000, we started doing human viral challenge studies, where we deliberately recruit and inoculate healthy volunteers with a virus to study the effects of vaccines or antiviral drugs. Those studies have quickly become one of the main revenue earners of the business. We’ve since become world-renowned for conducting commercial challenge studies, and we’re now using our clinical expertise to expand into other disciplines.”
Building upon its existing success, hVIVO has continued to broaden both its capabilities and geographic reach through a series of strategic partnerships and acquisitions – an approach which continues to drive its further growth today.
“Our recent expansions have given us new breadth into different areas. In 2000, we partnered with Venn Life Sciences in the Netherlands and France, which is now the consultancy arm of our business,” Andrew details. “This year, we acquired CRS, a German company with specialized Phase One sites focusing on clinical research for cardiometabolic diseases and dermatology. We’ve also recently acquired Cryostore, a sample and clinical trial product (IMP) storage facility of whom we were a major customer. We’d worked with them for many years and have an excellent relationship, so as we were storing more and more with them, it became a very logical acquisition for us.”
One hVIVO
Following its acquisition of CRS in January 2025, hVIVO decided to integrate all of the businesses within its group under a single operational brand, suitably titled ‘One hVIVO’. As the company’s expertise has grown across multiple specialist areas, so too has the opportunity to bring these complementary services together under a more unified structure – one that reflects the collaborative approach already embedded throughout the organization. Now, the newly-integrated ‘One hVIVO’ offers expert‑led, fully integrated drug development solutions, supporting programmes from pre‑clinical through to Phase Three.
“Over the last 18 months, we’ve worked hard to integrate all our businesses into ‘One Team’. We believe that it’s helped us to offer a much more complete package to our clients because the gaps in hVIVO London are filled by the capabilities of other sites; for example, we’re now able to support Phase One studies, offer pre-clinical, biometry and consultancy services on contract manufacturing, and other drug development activities,” Andrew explains. “Across the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, we’re now able to collectively support our clients throughout their entire journey and tailor specific solutions for clients. We’re not a large-scale research organization that has to follow the same standard processes for every client; we’re small enough to give extra care to every client.”
The move to this integrated structure marked a transformational shift in hVIVO’s trajectory, laying the foundations for continued investment and evolution. As the company’s operations proceed to grow, so too does its focus on operational excellence, thus its wider investment program prioritizes improvements in infrastructural capacity, efficiency, and scientific precision.
“In June 2024, we moved into our Canary Wharf facility, which gave us the space in invest in more technology to better support our clients. For instance, we’ve invested in upgrading our molecular biology solutions, so we’ve got brand new real-time qPCR machines, as well as a new throughput liquid handling extraction robot, which allows us to work with much smaller volumes,” Andrew enthuses. “Coupled with that, we’ve also invested in the new Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR) instrument from Bio-Rad. We’re the first ones to get this machine in Europe. It’s a really state-of-the-art machine that allows us to work with tiny volumes and get an absolute quantification; we can assay for lots of different pathogens in tiny sample sizes.
“hVIVO are also investing heavily into various tools and systems to complete a full transition from traditional paper-based systems to GCP compliant electronic systems,” he adds. “This will not only to help to enhance efficient operations and offer a faster turnaround of data for our clients but is also important to us from an ESG perspective in significantly reducing the paper requirements of the business. We have made significant strides on this in the past year or so and continue to work on this aspect.”
Well-equipped with its comprehensive industry expertise and strategic investment structure, hVIVO continues to push the boundaries of innovation. The company’s efforts, for instance, had a revolutionary impact on the development and commercialization of RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) vaccines, which have since saved millions of lives worldwide. Now, having built upon that RSV success, hVIVO is proud to have effectively developed and categorized the world’s only contemporary-strain hMPV (Human Metapneumovirus) challenge model.
“This development is transitioning on the back of the success we’ve seen with our RSV human challenge models, which were instrumental in helping RSV vaccines get to market,” Andrew elaborates. “On the back of our data, large-scale producers of RSV vaccines, such as Pfizer, we able to get a fast-track designation of their vaccine and get it to market quicker than they would’ve been able to otherwise. We’re very proud of that contribution that hVIVO made to getting those RSV vaccines to market, which are now saving the lives of millions of babies and elderly people worldwide.
“From that success, we’ve pivoted and started working on the hMPV vaccines, as it comes from the same family of virus. Because hMPV is a pathogen that’s never had a vaccine efficacious against it before, our challenge model is key as it will enable developers to test new vaccines extremely quickly.”
As hVIVO continues to evolve, its combination of scientific expertise, integrated capabilities, and forward-thinking investment strategy positions the company at the forefront of early-phase clinical development. By accelerating access to high-quality human data and delivering tailored support across the drug development pathway, hVIVO is both helping its clients bring new therapies to market faster and shaping the future of modern clinical research. With hVIVO’s human challenge models, the opportunities are monumental.
“We’ve recently announced that we’re in the position to conduct the world’s first Phase Three challenge study, where the only efficacy component will come directly from the study. That’ll be working on a new and improved vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough), which would be a groundbreaking development to get better efficacy for this very difficult disease – and we have the commercial infrastructure to deliver it. Equally, we’re prioritizing the external communication of our integrated sales strategies, whilst also further expanding our cardiometabolic services and respiratory disease challenge models,” Andrew says, concluding our conversation excited for the opportunities ahead.
“We’re now in a steady growth phase where we can be a fully integrated partner and save more lives. Over the next five years, we hope to be a bigger, stronger, and more diversified business and additionally well-established as a key service provider in the respiratory disease market that targets new medicines for asthma and COPD.”
