A plant lo­cat­ed in Wrex­ham, Wales that is pack­ing the Ox­ford/As­traZeneca Covid-19 vac­cine in­to vials was sur­round­ed by a bomb squad af­ter of­fi­cials called po­lice to re­port a sus­pi­cious pack­age.

The alert caused a par­tial evac­u­a­tion of the plant, the BBC was among those to re­port Wednes­day. The own­er of the plant, British drug­mak­er Wock­hardt UK, said it was co­op­er­at­ing with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and that there were no re­ports of any in­juries.

“Wock­hardt UK in Wrex­ham this morn­ing re­ceived a sus­pi­cious pack­age to site,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment to BBC. “All rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties were im­me­di­ate­ly no­ti­fied and en­gaged. Up­on ex­pert ad­vice we have par­tial­ly evac­u­at­ed the site pend­ing a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The British gov­ern­ment is al­so mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

An in­di­vid­ual who works next door to the plant told BBC he heard a “big bang” around 11:35 a.m. lo­cal time. He went out­side with two oth­ers to see what caused the noise but couldn’t de­ter­mine where it had come from. The po­lice then quick­ly closed off the road.

The Welsh plant has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to pro­duce about 300 mil­lion dos­es of the vac­cine per year. It’s the same plant that last week saw mas­sive flood­ing near­by, though the worst of the storm ap­peared to spare the plant.

Lu­men to earn up to $14.5 mil­lion from CARB-X for an­tidiar­rheal

Lu­men Bio­science and CARB-X are work­ing on a new project to­geth­er, one that could pro­vide Lu­men with some cash.

The pair are work­ing to de­vel­op an oral mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body cock­tail to pre­vent se­ri­ous di­ar­rheal dis­eases caused by Campy­lobac­ter je­ju­ni and en­tero­tox­i­genic E. coli. CARB-X is putting up an ini­tial fund­ing com­mit­ment of $5.2 mil­lion, and the project is el­i­gi­ble for an ad­di­tion­al $8.26 mil­lion in mile­stones, sub­ject to avail­able funds at CARB-X.

Com­mon­ly re­ferred to as trav­el­er’s di­ar­rhea, the dis­eases are a ma­jor cause of death and sick­ness in the de­vel­op­ing world, par­tic­u­lar­ly in in­fants and chil­dren. The in­tend­ed prod­uct is a low-cost, ed­i­ble an­ti­body cock­tail that can be eas­i­ly shipped, stored, and used world­wide, in­clud­ing in re­gions that lack cold-chain dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Lu­men’s pro­gram has com­plet­ed Phase I and should en­ter Phase II in ear­ly 2021, CEO Bri­an Fin­row told End­points News in Sep­tem­ber. The pro­gram is al­so part­ly fund­ed by the Bill and Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion.

CARB-X is a glob­al non-prof­it part­ner­ship that works on ac­cel­er­at­ing ear­ly an­tibac­te­r­i­al R&D to com­bat drug-re­sis­tant bac­te­ria. This deal brings the num­ber of ac­tive projects in the CARB-X port­fo­lio to 50.

In biopharma, driving a drug to market is the ultimate goal — but none of that happens without a strong research and development program. At the most successful companies, those R&D efforts are spearheaded by true innovators in the field who are always looking for that next novel mechanism of action or breakthrough safety profile.

Now, Endpoints News is asking you to tell us who those guiding lights are.

Capitol Hill heavyweight Jim Greenwood is taking his decades of experience in the intertwining worlds of biopharma and Congress to the law firm DLA Piper, where he’s opening up a new policy and regulatory practice alongside former Pfizer lawyer Geoffrey Levitt.

As Congress wrangles over how to bring down drug prices, the former BIO CEO told Endpoints News in an interview that his top three priorities will be, “Price controls, price controls and price controls.”

In oncology, a flush of Chinese-developed drugs has the biopharma industry rethinking the poles of power in R&D as the blossoming nation continues to make a name for itself and pick up bundles of cash in the process. Now, as its lead drug faces a pivotal FDA review, the company formerly known as Chi-Med is planting its flag on home soil with a massive public offering.

Hutchmed — recently renamed from Chi-Med, or Hutchison China MediTech — will look to raise $603 million as part of a Hong Kong IPO that serves as a homecoming of sorts for the Chinese-based oncology player, which has listed on Nasdaq since 2016.