Biotech bil­lion­aire Di­et­mar Hopp is open­ing up the cash vault to help out one of his biotech star­tups.

Op­er­at­ing through dievi­ni Hopp BioTech hold­ing, Hopp has sunk a lit­tle more than $40 mil­lion in­to Hei­del­berg Phar­ma. The mon­ey can be put to use on the Phase I/II clin­i­cal pro­gram for their lead drug: HDP-101, a BC­MA AT­AC for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma. HDP-102, a CD37 AT­AC for non-Hodgkin’s lym­phoma, and HDP-103, a PS­MA AT­AC for metasta­t­ic cas­tra­tion-re­sis­tant prostate can­cer, are in pre­clin­i­cal test­ing.

Hopp has been an avid biotech in­vestor in the years since he ex­it­ed SAP, a soft­ware out­fit which he co-found­ed with a group of ex-IB­Mers and led for 10 years as CEO. Cure­Vac, one of the mR­NA play­ers which al­lied with GSK but re­mains well be­hind the lead­ers in de­vel­op­ing a new vac­cine for Covid, is one of his biggest plays. Hopp is al­so a key backer for Im­mat­ics, which is look­ing to break new ground in cell ther­a­pies for can­cer.

Hei­del­berg reg­is­ters on the small side of the biotech scale, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter watch­ing the stock $HPHA slide slight­ly more than 50% on the Frank­furt ex­change over the past year as the drug de­vel­op­ment field lost its al­lure for gen­er­al­ist in­vestors. In this case, hav­ing a bil­lion­aire backer can come in very handy.

Hei­del­berg it­self was formed a lit­tle more than 5 years ago us­ing BC­MA an­ti­body tech — dubbed AT­ACs — out of the Max Del­brück Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Med­i­cine. Their lead drug us­es a BC­MA an­ti­body, a link­er and the tox­in aman­itin.

Ireland has been on a roll in 2022, with several large pharma companies announcing multimillion-euro projects. Now AstraZeneca’s rare disease outfit Alexion is looking to get in on the action.

Alexion on Friday announced a €65 million ($68.8 million) investment in new and enhanced capabilities across two sites in the country, including at College Park in the Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown and the Monksland Industrial Park in the central Irish town of Athlone, according to the Industrial Development Agency of Ireland.

Amidst recently broader vaccine manufacturing initiatives from the EU and European companies, the G7 summit in the mountains of Bavaria has brought about some positive news for closing vaccine and medical product manufacturing gaps around the globe.

According to a statement from the White House, the G7 leaders have formally launched the partnership for global infrastructure, PGII. The effort will aim to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to deliver infrastructure projects in several sectors including the medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing space.

Though Decibel Therapeutics has largely pivoted toward gene therapies for the inner ear, its lead clinical candidate simply aims to protect cancer patients from chemotherapy-induced hearing loss. On Tuesday, the biotech presented its first efficacy data for the program, and execs like what they see.

Decibel reported interim results from a Phase Ib study showing the experimental drug, dubbed DB-020, largely protected a small group of patients from losing their hearing. Researchers used a particularly unique study design, administering the compound in one of each patients’ ears before they received cisplatin chemotherapy and placebo in the other.

In November, Pfizer disclosed it’s spun out the Phase II dual JAK1/TYK2 inhibitor to a startup formed in collaboration with an unnamed, experienced partner.

We now know who the partner is. And as Pfizer and Roivant officially take the wraps off Priovant Therapeutics, the companies reveal that they have started two registrational trials of the drug, brepocitinib, as part of a broader plan to develop a big, first-in-class franchise spanning multiple orphan and specialty autoimmune diseases.