With Mod­er­na and BioN­Tech of­fer­ing a mod­el — in the US and Eu­rope, re­spec­tive­ly — for how mR­NA biotechs can en­joy a me­te­oric rise to prof­it and fame with just one suc­cess­ful Covid-19 vac­cine, a Chi­nese play­er is ready to put it­self on the map.

Abo­gen, which set a record just three months ago with a $720 mil­lion Se­ries C, has now raised an­oth­er $300 mil­lion as it pre­pares to file its vac­cine can­di­date for au­tho­riza­tion. Part­nered with Wal­vax and Chi­na’s mil­i­tary, ABO-028M first en­tered clin­i­cal test­ing in the sum­mer of 2020 and is now in Phase III tri­als in Mex­i­co, In­done­sia and Nepal.

The com­pa­ny has kept it­self large­ly se­cre­tive since be­ing found­ed in Jan­u­ary 2019 — its web­site is near­ly en­tire­ly blank, save for an email ad­dress and a two-sen­tence de­scrip­tion of the com­pa­ny. But one key dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing fac­tor ap­pears to be greater sta­bil­i­ty of its mR­NA vac­cine at warm tem­per­a­tures.

Soft­Bank Vi­sion Fund and 5Y Cap­i­tal co-led the new raise, which is be­ing brand­ed a Se­ries C+, and oth­er in­vestors in­clude Chimera Abu Dhabi, For­tune Ocean and Mi­rae As­set Fi­nan­cial Group.

As BioN­Tech’s jab, part­nered with Fo­s­un on de­vel­op­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion, re­mains in lim­bo in Chi­na, pub­lic health of­fi­cials and reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ties have been talk­ing up the prospects of a rapid ap­proval for a do­mes­tic shot.

In an ef­fort to speed up the an­tic­i­pat­ed roll­out, Abo­gen and Wal­vax said on Mon­day they will en­list con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er Gen­Script Pro­Bio to pro­duce the plas­mids that will go in­to their com­mer­cial batch­es.

“The pan­dem­ic is still rag­ing,” said Bri­an Min, CEO of Gen­Script Pro­Bio. “Abo­gen Bio­sciences had launched the project since the very be­gin­ning of the out­break of COVID-19.”

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.

Fujifilm’s CDMO arm, Fujifilm Diosynth, has been on a roll this month as the company has recently broken ground on a major project in Europe and it appears to be keeping up the momentum.

Fujifilm Diosynth announced that it has kicked off an expansion project for its microbial manufacturing facility at its campus in the town of Billingham, UK, in the northeast of England.

The 20,000 square-foot, £400 million ($435 million) expansion will add clean rooms, purification suites and a packing area along with more space for the manufacturing itself.

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.

At Klick Health’s first Ideas Exchange conference with biotech and pharma industry insiders since before the pandemic began, it was no surprise many conversations included Covid topics. Yet while vaccines and treatments were discussed, so too were the effects on drug development, federal responses, health inequities — and what to do now and next.

George Yancopoulos, chief scientist and cofounder of Regeneron, opened the conference responding to a question from Acorda CEO Ron Cohen about the spotlight on the industry during Covid and some of the “flak” biopharma has taken in the past.