We’ve been watch­ing our web traf­fic grow month-to-month at a dou­ble-dig­it pace. In June, traf­fic at End­points News hit 313,439, ex­act­ly 10% high­er than the month be­fore, with 161,226 unique vis­i­tors to the site. And our sub­scriber list broke the 16,000 mark – heav­i­ly con­cen­trat­ed among bio­phar­ma ex­ec­u­tives — as we head straight to 20,000 this fall.

I like to say that End­points is the old­est new bio­phar­ma pub on the block. For those of you who have fol­lowed me over the past 15 years – in­clud­ing much of the 14 years be­fore Ar­salan Arif and I part­nered on the launch on June 20, 2016 – it’s that track record and abil­i­ty to swift­ly add con­text to the news that makes this pub dif­fer­ent from all of the rest. And as we grow the staff this sum­mer, you can bet that we’ll be look­ing to con­tin­ue to broad­en our cov­er­age base and ge­o­graph­ic reach as we look to grow the au­di­ence and web traf­fic to 500,000-plus in the near fu­ture.

What I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py about is that we ac­com­plished this with a small team and ex­act­ly noth­ing to spend on a mar­ket­ing cam­paign. All of our growth has been through word-of-mouth rec­om­men­da­tions and our so­cial me­dia pres­ence, with a big boost re­cent­ly from Google News. When you’re boot-strap­ping a new, dig­i­tal pub like this, you’ve got noth­ing ex­tra for mar­ket­ing. So we’re all ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly grate­ful for your sup­port and the steady stream of notes from read­ers.

This lit­er­al­ly could nev­er have hap­pened with­out your help.

To help fund the sec­ond year of growth, Ar­salan and I are prep­ping a sub­scriber cam­paign for End­points In­sid­er that will get un­der­way ear­ly next week. As we’ve al­ready made clear, we are not go­ing be­hind a pay­wall. The news will re­main on­line and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble. We are look­ing for read­ers who sup­port the mis­sion, or sim­ply no longer wish to get emailed ad­ver­tis­ing, to sub­scribe to End­points for $200 a year.

Pre-reg­is­ter for End­points In­sid­er

No pay­ment de­tails re­quired to­day

There’s al­so a $1,000/per year cor­po­rate rate for groups, no mat­ter what size. That in­cludes full reprint and re­pub­lish­ing rights of our con­tent for all le­git­i­mate busi­ness cas­es — per­fect for PR agen­cies who want to send ar­ti­cles in full to clients, cor­po­rate in­tranets, trade show ad­ver­tis­ing, web­site post­ing, and more. Whether you are a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion or a small shop, the en­ter­prise rate is the same.

We’ve had a strong re­sponse from our first word on this new cam­paign. And you can add your name to our pre­reg­is­tra­tion list here. (You won’t be billed to­day or asked to pro­vide pay­ment de­tails.)

It’s been a great start. And the rest of 2017 and all of 2018 are go­ing to be gang­busters. I guar­an­tee you won’t want to miss it. — John Car­roll

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.

ViiV Healthcare has teamed up with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool and three generic manufacturers to expand access to medicine that can prevent HIV.

ViiV and the Medicines Patent Pool jointly announced Thursday that the MPP signed sub-licensing agreements with Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris to manufacture generics of a long-acting form of cabotegravir for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). As a result of the agreement, the manufacturers will be able to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of cabotegravir LA in 90 countries — subject to regulatory approvals.