Mod­er­na’s rapid fire de­vel­op­ment of its huge­ly suc­cess­ful mR­NA vac­cine for Covid saved lives, changed the vac­cine in­dus­try for­ev­er and made CEO Stéphane Ban­cel a bil­lion­aire. But per­haps the sweet­est re­ward came this week, when Ban­cel was named a Cheva­lier — ba­si­cal­ly knight­ed — by the pres­i­dent of France.

Pres­ti­gious Eu­ro­pean ti­tles like this are rare in bio­phar­ma, but not un­known, as As­traZeneca’s Mene Pan­ga­los could tell you af­ter be­ing knight­ed by the Queen, named on the hon­ors list in 2020 for his con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence.

Born in Mar­seilles with an MBA from Har­vard, Ban­cel un­abashed­ly vowed to ei­ther go big at Mod­er­na, rais­ing what were then huge sums for his start­up, or fold the tent and go home. Now run­ning a $53 bil­lion phar­ma com­pa­ny, he was stung re­peat­ed­ly by ear­ly skep­tics who ques­tioned the com­pa­ny’s cul­ture, its sci­ence and Ban­cel’s brash per­son­al­i­ty.

Ban­cel still gets lots of crit­i­cism and the rest of the pipeline is far from as­sured, as noth­ing is in this busi­ness. But get­ting the high­est hon­or in France has to count as a mo­ment to cel­e­brate lead­ing a land­mark ac­com­plish­ment. He earned that.

We’re hon­ored that our CEO Stéphane Ban­cel was named Cheva­lier (Knight) of the Lé­gion d’Hon­neur, the high­est French dis­tinc­tion for mil­i­tary and civ­il ac­com­plish­ments, by Mr Fran­cis Wahl on be­half of @Em­manuel­Macron, Pres­i­dent of France. pic.twit­ter.com/ay­bqJJIRzJ

— Mod­er­na (@mod­er­na_tx) May 18, 2022

GSK, newly branded and soon-to-be demerged, shared interim results from its Phase II trial on its chronic hepatitis B treatment, one that it says has the “potential to lead to a functional cure.”

At a presentation at the EASL International Liver Congress, GSK shared that in around 450 patients who received its hep B drug bepirovirsen for 24 weeks, just under 30% had hepatitis B surface antigen and viral DNA levels that were too low to detect.

Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”

The story of Amryt Pharma’s candidate for the genetic skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, will soon enter another chapter.

After the Irish drugmaker’s candidate, dubbed Oleogel-S10 and marketed as Filsuvez, was handed a CRL earlier this year, the company announced in a press release that it plans to submit a formal dispute resolution request for the company’s NDA for Oleogel-S10.