Rare and orphan drug services company Open Orphan (LSE: ORPH) traded at 6.2p on Monday after continuing its strong update with news that it has agreed to sign five new customers to one of its flagship platforms.

The pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have become early adopters of the Genomic Health DataBANK platform of Open Orphan, which is expected to be completed and launched in Q1 2020. By providing a solution for both patients and drug organizations, the platform captures highly valuable genetic data.

Community health groups are urged to contribute their medical/clinical data to assist medical researchers in developing new treatments for patients with rare / orphan conditions. Large pharmaceutical companies often search for specific, anonymized data to support their drug discovery programs. As such, the profits generated by paid exposure will be divided between Open Orphan and the relevant Community health Groups–which are encouraged to increase and encourage the platform's data contributions.

Open Orphan said on Monday that signing up will ensure that the database is fit from a pharmaceutical and data analysis in advance of first uploading of patient data. The firm is also working with several Patient Advocacy Groups to finalize early adopter agreements, which will inform their patients about the database.

Maurice Treacy, Chief Commercial Officer of Open Orphan said the strategic agreements will enable the company to achieve its goal of building the first rare disease, advocacy-led genomic database in Europe.

We are very excited to be working on our market-leading DataBANK with these leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms,' he added. The Genomic Health DataBANK is an innovative research tool for pharmaceutical companies, making extensive use of AI tools, and we are excited about its potential when it was launched in early 2020. We assume that the DataBANK will spark research into new diagnostic tools and medical services for patients with rare diseases.' Open Orphan reported in October that it had employed Empiric Logic to complete the Genomic Health Data Platform build-up. Empiric Logic will integrate AI and security solutions into the database to prepare it for its first data acceptance.

Monday's announcement also comes just days after Open Orphan confirmed the agreement of a deal for a first in human pharmacology trial with Cara Bioscience. The deal is expected to produce significant income over the next 12 months for Open Orphan and builds on the strategy of the company to secure long-term alliances with high-quality businesses. Carna Bioscience is a small to medium-sized Japanese pharmaceutical company specializing in the production of novel cancer and immune disorder therapies.

Meanwhile, Open Orphan signed an agreement earlier this month that will allow Venn Life Sciences to become the preferred partner for the data management and biostatistics of the biopharmaceutical firm Ipsen Group for three years. Open Orphan said that for more firms like Ipsen, the deal–which has already delivered "substantial revenue" –positions it as an integrated drug development partner.

The partnership is also part of the strategy of Open Orphan to transform and restructure Venn by reducing operating leverage, increasing revenue, improving operating margins, and launching additional services. Open Orphan was launched in June this year regarding Venn's reverse takeover alongside a fresh £ 4.5 m injection of equity–mainly from institutional investors.