The gener­ic drug­mak­er Dr. Red­dy’s Lab­o­ra­to­ries will be di­vest­ing sev­er­al of its der­ma­tol­ogy brands in re­turn for about $33 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease sent to the Na­tion­al Stock Ex­change of In­dia on Thurs­day, the agree­ment will see In­di­an phar­ma com­pa­ny Eris Life­sciences net the trade­mark for these brands, which Dr. Red­dy’s iden­ti­fied as “non-core brands.” Dr. Red­dy’s will be pick­ing up Rs 275 crore, or around $33.2 mil­lion. The brands had sales last year of around Rs 60 crore, or $7.2 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the re­lease.

A re­port from the na­tion­al news site The Times of In­dia said that a to­tal of nine brands are be­ing let go and that the trans­ac­tion is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed at the end of March.

“To­day’s an­nounce­ment is in line with our stat­ed in­ten­tion of pur­su­ing a strat­e­gy that in­volves grow­ing brands or­gan­i­cal­ly com­bined with ac­qui­si­tions that are a strate­gic fit and di­vest­ment of non-core brands,” M.V. Ra­mana, CEO of brand­ed mar­kets at Dr. Red­dy’s, said in a state­ment.

The move does not seem to have had a ma­jor im­pact on its stock price $RDY, which has in­creased just over 1% since open­ing on Thurs­day.

While Dr. Red­dy’s may be mak­ing some di­vest­ments, it has al­so been look­ing to boost its over­all port­fo­lio. In late Feb­ru­ary, it ac­quired Mayne Phar­ma’s US gener­ics port­fo­lio for at least $90 mil­lion in cash, along with a pay­ment of up to $15 mil­lion in con­tin­gent val­ue rights. Mayne sold around 45 dif­fer­ent gener­ics in the US.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

A Massachusetts federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a class action lawsuit filed by investors against Biogen and several of its current and former executives over the company’s failed Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm (aducanumab).

The investors argued that Biogen’s contact with the FDA was unlawful and that the company made 25 false and misleading statements, including statements about the rollout and price of the drug.

The EMA released updated recommendations today for the use of JAK inhibitors (JAKi) after reviewing data from several clinical trials that showed increased incidents of issues in certain patients who have rheumatoid arthritis and other risk factors.

The EMA noted malignancy, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), serious infections, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and mortality in some patients.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is putting down more roots in the Bay Area.

The manufacturer opened the doors to a new cell therapy manufacturing facility next to the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus and on the university’s campus.

UCSF and Thermo Fisher have had a partnership since 2021, with the new site focusing on manufacturing cell therapeutics for certain cancers, including glioblastoma and multiple myeloma. The new site plans to use Thermo Fisher’s expertise in manufacturing services to help UCSF accelerate the development of cell therapies and eventually get them into the clinic, said Dan Herring, the general manager of cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher, in an interview with Endpoints News.

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.