Look­ing to over­haul the gener­ics sup­ply chain for fu­ture pan­demics, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in May doled out a hefty four-year, $354 mil­lion con­tract to the fledg­ling Phlow Cor­po­ra­tion, based in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia. That con­tract, which could in­crease to as much as 10 years and $812 mil­lion, in­clud­ed build­ing a new man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty to re­duce US de­pen­dence on for­eign drug pro­duc­tion.

A day af­ter Trump left Wash­ing­ton, DC, the first steps of that plan fi­nal­ly be­gan to take shape.

Civi­ca Rx, a non-prof­it gener­ic drug man­u­fac­tur­er found­ed in 2018, an­nounced on Thurs­day that it would in­vest $124.5 mil­lion to build its first in-house man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tion in Pe­ters­burg, Vir­ginia — close to Phlow and the oth­er part­ners in the gov­ern­ment con­tract, Med­i­cines for All In­sti­tute and AM­PAC Fine Chem­i­cals.

The con­tract raised some eye­brows in the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try when it was first an­nounced, as Phlow’s CEO Er­ic Ed­wards is per­haps best known for drug pric­ing con­tro­ver­sies stem­ming from Kaléo, a com­pa­ny he co­found­ed, which up­charged an EpiPen vari­a­tion some 700% sev­er­al years ago.

Civi­ca’s 120,000-square-foot site will take sev­er­al years to be­come ful­ly op­er­a­tional, the com­pa­ny has said pre­vi­ous­ly, but will man­u­fac­ture vials and sy­ringes of in­jectable med­i­cines used for Covid-19 pa­tient care, as well as drugs used in emer­gency rooms, surg­eries, and the treat­ment of se­ri­ous in­fec­tions and hy­per­ten­sion.

“Our part­ner­ship and co-man­u­fac­tur­ing lo­ca­tion with Phlow and AM­PAC will be in­stru­men­tal in our ef­forts to sim­pli­fy what is typ­i­cal­ly a very com­plex sup­ply chan­nel,” Civi­ca CEO Mar­tin VanTri­este said in a state­ment. “This is a dream come true for Civi­ca and our hos­pi­tal part­ners as we work to­geth­er to sta­bi­lize the sup­ply of qual­i­ty med­i­cines for pa­tients across the coun­try.”

De­spite be­ing less than three years old, Civi­ca has built a big foot­print in the gener­ic drug man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try. The com­pa­ny is as­so­ci­at­ed with over 50 health sys­tems across the coun­try, which amounts to some 1,350 hos­pi­tals and over a third of the na­tion’s to­tal li­censed hos­pi­tal bed ca­pac­i­ty.

Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Ralph Northam heaped praise on Civi­ca’s in­vest­ment in the state, as well as the fed­er­al part­ner­ship. The Civi­ca fa­cil­i­ty when com­plet­ed will bring close to 200 new jobs to the Old Do­min­ion state and will serve a key pur­pose as the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to un­fold, Northam said in a state­ment.

“This project is a tremen­dous win that will ce­ment Vir­ginia’s sta­tus as a leader in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing, an in­dus­try that re­mains at the fore­front of re­spond­ing to the glob­al pan­dem­ic,” Northam said. “Civi­ca’s part­ner­ship with Phlow Cor­po­ra­tion, Med­i­cines for All In­sti­tute, and AM­PAC Fine Chem­i­cals will en­sure the gen­er­al pub­lic has ac­cess to high-qual­i­ty, life­sav­ing med­i­cines and pro­vide a crit­i­cal av­enue for do­mes­tic drug man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.”

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

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.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.