Af­ter tak­ing a pair of tor­pe­does at the wa­ter­line last year, a list­ing Men­lo Ther­a­peu­tics $MN­LO is cast­ing its lot with Is­raeli der­ma­tol­ogy biotech Foamix $FOMX in a merg­er deal that’s care­ful­ly hedged against more fail­ures.

Foamix got a big — and much need­ed — boost a few weeks ago, when the FDA ap­proved its top­i­cal for­mu­la­tion of an an­tibi­ot­ic for ac­ne. And they just filed an NDA on an­oth­er minocy­cline take with an ap­pli­ca­tion for mod­er­ate-to-se­vere papu­lo­pus­tu­lar rosacea.

They’re com­bin­ing with a com­pa­ny that counts ser­lop­i­tant as the lead — and on­ly — drug in the pipeline. We last heard of that drug a year ago, when it failed a sec­ond tri­al fo­cused on chron­ic cough. Now they’re run­ning a piv­otal in pru­ri­tus, even though it failed the Phase II.

As of now, Foamix share­hold­ers come out of a post-merg­er com­pa­ny with 59% of the stock in what is a pure share swap. But if ser­lop­i­tant fails the first of 2 piv­otal stud­ies, their share goes up to 76%. A sec­ond fail­ure takes that to 82%.

Here are the near term cat­a­lysts they’re tout­ing to share­hold­ers.

• Com­mer­cial launch of Amzeeq an­tic­i­pat­ed in Jan­u­ary 2020
• Phase II clin­i­cal tri­al re­sults for ser­lop­i­tant for the treat­ment of CPUO in Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary 2020
• Phase III clin­i­cal tri­al re­sults in the U.S. and Eu­rope for ser­lop­i­tant for the treat­ment of pru­ri­tus in PN in March or April 2020
• FMX103 PDU­FA ac­tion date of June 2, 2020
• Phase II clin­i­cal tri­al re­sults for FCD105 for treat­ment of mod­er­ate to se­vere ac­ne with top-line da­ta ex­pect­ed in mid-2020
• NDA sub­mis­sion, as­sum­ing Phase III suc­cess for ser­lop­i­tant for the treat­ment of pru­ri­tus in PN, in H2 2020

Men­lo’s stock hit a high north of $37 in the spring of 2018, then fell off a cliff as the on­ly egg in its bas­ket cracked un­der stress. Shares closed a lit­tle over $5 on Fri­day, rep­re­sent­ing a fall from grace that can’t be ex­cused by the break­through ther­a­py des­ig­na­tion they won on ser­lop­i­tant.

The EMA is putting EU member states on alert over the shortage of two drugs that counter heart attacks due to an uptick in demand.

On Friday, the EMA sent out a warning that two Boehringer Ingelheim drugs are experiencing a shortage: Actilyse and Metalyse. The drugs are used as emergency treatments for adults experiencing acute myocardial infarction, or a heart attack, by dissolving blood clots that have formed in the blood vessels.

Allogene Therapeutics said in an SEC filing today that French partner Servier has cut off its involvement in a partnership developing therapies directed against CD19, including the most advanced candidates in Allogene’s pipeline.

Shares of Allogene $ALLO, an outfit run by Kite vets Arie Belldegrun and research chief David Chang, fell by almost 10% on Wednesday, even as the San Francisco-based company said that Servier’s discontinuation “does not otherwise affect our current exclusive license for the development and commercialization of CD19 Products in the United States.”

Back in April, Amgen said it was encouraged by the solicitor general’s anticipated review of its Supreme Court petition to rehear a Repatha patent case. They’re likely much less optimistic about the outcome now.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a recent 27-page brief that Amgen’s arguments “lack merit and further review is not warranted.”

The case traces back to a suit filed in 2014 against Sanofi and Regeneron’s Praluent, which ended up beating Amgen’s PCSK9 blockbuster Repatha to market by a month just a year later.