Whether pa­tients are im­muno­com­pro­mised or just don’t like nee­dles, one fledg­ling Aus­tralian biotech says it has an al­ter­na­tive to Covid-19 vac­cines that doesn’t in­volve a jab in the arm — and on Tues­day, it pulled in a fresh round of fund­ing to take it in­to the clin­ic.

ENA Res­pi­ra­to­ry, which spun out of ENA Ther­a­peu­tics last year, has pulled in near­ly $24.7 mil­lion (AU $30 mil­lion) to ad­vance its nasal spray for res­pi­ra­to­ry vi­ral in­fec­tions, the com­pa­ny said Tues­day.

The fund­ing, trig­gered by mile­stones, was led by Aus­tralian in­vestors Bran­don Cap­i­tal Part­ners and Min­deroo Foun­da­tion, with Uniseed chim­ing in.

ENA’s lead can­di­date, IN­NA-051, is a small mol­e­cule that tar­gets the TLR2/6 re­cep­tors on air­way ep­ithe­lial cells to boost the body’s nat­ur­al im­mune re­sponse to virus­es. It’s set to en­ter the clin­ic “in the com­ing weeks,” ac­cord­ing to the ENA.

Christophe De­mai­son

“Along­side vac­cines, there is a need for com­ple­men­tary ap­proach­es to help pro­tect the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and al­so pro­vide pro­tec­tion against emerg­ing vari­ants,” co-founder and CEO Christophe De­mai­son said in a state­ment.

He sees the spray as es­pe­cial­ly use­ful for peo­ple who are el­der­ly or im­muno­com­pro­mised, and can’t mount a suf­fi­cient re­sponse to cur­rent­ly avail­able vac­cines. It would be self-ad­min­is­tered once or twice a week, ei­ther be­fore or short­ly af­ter ex­po­sure. And be­cause it’s not virus-spe­cif­ic, ENA be­lieves IN­NA-051 could ward off oth­er ill­ness­es like the flu and com­mon cold, as well as emerg­ing Covid-19 vari­ants.

Back in De­cem­ber, ENA pub­lished re­sults in EBio­Med­i­cine show­ing that a group of fer­rets treat­ed with IN­NA-051 in a chal­lenge study saw re­duced vi­ral repli­ca­tion of up to 96%.

“If hu­mans re­spond in a sim­i­lar way, the ben­e­fits of treat­ment are two-fold,” De­mai­son said at the time. “In­di­vid­u­als ex­posed to the virus would most like­ly rapid­ly elim­i­nate it, with the treat­ment en­sur­ing that the dis­ease does not progress be­yond mild symp­toms. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant to vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. In ad­di­tion, the ra­pid­i­ty of this re­sponse means that the in­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als are un­like­ly to pass it on, mean­ing a swift halt to com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion.”

In ad­di­tion to the fund­ing, ENA is tap­ping Glax­o­SmithK­line vet Ruth Tal-Singer to its board of di­rec­tors. While she’s cur­rent­ly pres­i­dent and CSO of the non­prof­it COPD Foun­da­tion, Tal-Singer once held a va­ri­ety of se­nior roles at the phar­ma, in­clud­ing VP of med­ical in­no­va­tion and VP of res­pi­ra­to­ry R&D.

Nasal sprays have gained in­creas­ing in­ter­est as an al­ter­na­tive for those who can’t ben­e­fit from vac­cines in the last year. Back in No­vem­ber, gene ther­a­py pi­o­neer James Wil­son and his col­leagues at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia inked a pact with Re­gen­eron to see if they could com­bine the biotech’s Covid-19 an­ti­body cock­tail with a nasal spray-based AAV de­liv­ery plat­form. And back in March, GV led a $47 mil­lion round to fund Ley­den Labs’ mis­sion to de­vel­op a nasal spray that could pro­tect peo­ple from a whole range of virus­es for a few days.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

The government of the United Kingdom is giving out grants to several manufacturers that have a presence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government announced that four companies, including Ipsen, contract manufacturer Pharmaron, DNA manufacturer Touchlight and diagnostic test producer Randox, will receive a total of £277 million ($341.1 million). According to a release from the UK government, this represents the first portion of grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund.

A company with public links to Sanofi and Moderna has raised more money to expand its mission of improving diversity and enrollment in clinical trials.

Inato put the word out on Wednesday that it raised $20 million via an A2 round to advance its matching platform between pharma companies and potential clinical trial sites.

Inato CEO Kourosh Davarpanah told Endpoints News that with the $20 million in hand, it will pursue improvements to its diversity offerings, its focus on oncology and data collection.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”