In­ovio was one of the first vac­cine de­vel­op­ers to snag at­ten­tion for a jab that their ex­ecs said promised to end the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. Us­ing their own unique DNA tech, CEO Joseph Kim said it took just 3 hours to work it out.

But while ri­vals are rac­ing to the fin­ish line with am­bi­tious plans to make vast quan­ti­ties of their vac­cines with bil­lions of dol­lars of deals, In­ovio is still stuck at the start­ing line on man­u­fac­tur­ing.

The biotech — which has yet to de­vel­op a sin­gle ap­proved prod­uct in 4 decades — says it cur­rent­ly has been stymied by a stand­off with its longterm con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er. And In­ovio filed a law­suit to free it­self from the re­la­tion­ship and move on to new part­ners who can make hun­dreds of mil­lions of dos­es — if it pass­es muster.

The prob­lem, In­ovio claims in its law­suit, is that a Ko­re­an-owned com­pa­ny called VGXI, which has long been re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing the batch­es of vac­cines the biotech us­es in tri­als, can’t make the vac­cine in com­mer­cial quan­ti­ty and re­fus­es to trans­fer the tech­nol­o­gy re­quired to oth­ers who can — de­spite be­ing con­trac­tu­al­ly bound to do so.

VGXI is build­ing a plant, the biotech adds, but that won’t come on­line un­til 2022 — an eter­ni­ty in pan­dem­ic tim­ing, es­pe­cial­ly as a group of vac­cine mak­ers who have man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty ei­ther in-house or con­tract­ed or both are rac­ing to start pro­vid­ing vac­cines as ear­ly as this fall, with bil­lions of dos­es pos­si­ble next year.

In­ovio is ask­ing a judge for dam­ages as well as an or­der to shift the tech to new ven­dors.

While VGXI, based in The Wood­lands out­side of Hous­ton, TX, hasn’t filed a re­sponse yet, In­ovio in­clud­ed sev­er­al let­ters from their COO, Dorothy Pe­ter­son, say­ing that the man­u­fac­tur­ing tech in­volved is pro­pri­etary to her com­pa­ny. One oth­er let­ter from Pe­ter­son to a com­pa­ny called Ol­o­gy, which had sought to make the vac­cine for In­ovio, de­mand­ed that they stop us­ing tech that be­longed to VGXI.

Pe­ter­son al­leged that In­ovio vi­o­lat­ed their sup­ply agree­ment by go­ing to oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers — which In­ovio de­nied — but of­fered to work out a new mas­ter sup­ply agree­ment to take its place.

Like oth­er com­pa­nies that jumped in­to the Covid-19 race, In­ovio has seen its stock price gy­rate high­er on spec­u­la­tion over which com­pa­ny will be a suc­cess. Op­er­a­tion Warp Speed out of the White House re­port­ed­ly is set on as­sist­ing a small group of vac­cine de­vel­op­ers, like Mod­er­na. But In­ovio wasn’t men­tioned.

To­day, the biotech’s stock is down about 5%, but it’s still rough­ly triple the mark it trad­ed at in late Feb­ru­ary, when the out­break went glob­al.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Nearly a year ago, as the pandemic encroached and the stock market cratered, Flagship and ARCH Venture announced three mega-funds worth a combined $2.5 billion. They wanted, ARCH’s Bob Nelsen said, to restore confidence “that there was money out there and a lot of it” to invest in biotech.

Since then, the stock market has returned — almost frighteningly so — and Nelsen has kept raising and spending cash. On Thursday, he announced a new fund, worth $1.85 billion. It’s the largest pot yet for a VC famous for its deep pockets.

Before 2020, few Americans had ever heard of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, BARDA, or its far-flung mission to stave off future pandemics and bio-threats. Allegedly, that made it a pretty good target for others in HHS who needed to scavenge some extra cash.

Over the last decade, other HHS officials raided BARDA’s coffers and misappropriated millions of dollars that Congress had earmarked to fund vaccine research and prepare for public health emergencies like Covid-19, according to a new report from the US Office of Special Counsel, which investigated a whistleblower report.

Even though Dean Li has now officially taken over for Roger Perlmutter as R&D chief, Merck’s appetite for dealmaking continues to be ravenous.

Li struck his first big deal at the helm Thursday morning, hammering out a collaboration with Artiva Biotherapeutics that could earn the biotech nearly $1.9 billion when all is said and done. It’s a quick rise and validation for Artiva, which just last June launched with a $78 million Series A.