The French meta­bol­ic ex­perts at Pox­el have re­versed course on their planned so­lo de­vel­op­ment mis­sion in Japan, lin­ing up an Asian part­ner for their late-stage di­a­betes drug imeglim­in.

Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon Phar­ma stepped up with a $42 mil­lion up­front, with promis­es of $24 mil­lion more for de­vel­op­ment mile­stones and about $233 mil­lion for hit­ting a slate of sales goals. In ex­change they land mar­ket­ing and de­vel­op­ment rights — they’ll be pay­ing for the Phase III — in Chi­na, Japan and oth­er key Asian coun­tries.

Thomas Kuhn

Back in May, though, Pox­el CEO Thomas Kuhn told me the biotech was plan­ning to go at Phase III in Japan all by it­self, a rare feat in the di­a­betes world, where a few key gi­ants dom­i­nate the glob­al land­scape for a dis­ease that has claimed mil­lions of pa­tients.

In­vestors didn’t mind, though, send­ing Pox­el’s shares (EPA: $POX­EL) rock­et­ing up 43%.

The Mer­ck Serono spin­out had ini­tial­ly fig­ured that it could pull off a Phase III pro­gram in Japan with 1,000 pa­tients, far few­er than what would nor­mal­ly be ex­pect­ed. Pox­el is styling imeglim­in as a mi­to­chon­dr­i­al ther­a­py that could pro­tect be­ta cells, mak­ing it a good po­ten­tial add-on. Its shares rock­et­ed up 40% last May af­ter a Phase IIb tri­al in Japan reg­is­tered he­mo­glo­bin A1c re­duc­tions of 0.52%, 0.94% and 1.00% for the 500 mg, 1000 mg and 1500 mg dose twice-dai­ly.

“Giv­en imeglim­in’s unique pro­file and nov­el mech­a­nism of ac­tion, which we be­lieve is well-suit­ed for Asian pa­tients, it has the po­ten­tial to be a very im­por­tant new oral ther­a­py for the treat­ment of type 2 di­a­betes. With their very long and suc­cess­ful his­to­ry of com­mer­cial­iz­ing di­a­betes prod­ucts and as a leader in this re­gion with a ded­i­cat­ed fran­chise, Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon Phar­ma will be an ex­cel­lent part­ner for imeglim­in in Asia,” said Kuhn in a state­ment. “Our near-term fo­cus in Japan is to ini­ti­ate the Phase III pro­gram and to work close­ly with Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon Phar­ma to sup­port the Japan­ese New Drug Ap­pli­ca­tion sub­mis­sion.”

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With atopic dermatitis rivals breathing down Dupixent’s neck, Sanofi and Regeneron on Friday secured a first win in new territory in what Sanofi’s head of immunology and inflammation Naimish Patel called the fastest approval he’s ever seen.

The FDA approved Dupixent on Friday to treat patients 12 years and older with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), an inflammatory condition that causes swelling and scarring of the esophagus. The approval came just a couple months after regulators granted Dupixent priority review, and months ahead of its PDUFA date on Aug. 3.

A Japanese conglomerate is making a big play in China with the opening of a new facility, as it continues to expand.

Fujifilm Irvine Scientific has opened its new Innovation and Collaboration Center in Suzhou New District, China, an area in Jiangsu province specifically designated for technological and industrial development.

According to Fujifilm, the 12,000-square-foot site will be responsible for the company’s cell culture media optimization, analysis and design services. Cell culture media itself often requires customization of formulas and protocols to achieve the desired quantity and quality of therapeutic desired. Fujifilm Irvine Scientific is offering these services from its headquarters in California and Japan to its customers globally, as well as in China now.

Even after Utah-based Clene failed to hit its primary endpoints for its ALS drug last year, the state of Maryland is putting its money at least behind Clene’s manufacturing facility.

The Maryland Board of Public Works has finalized a $3 million, 60-month loan facility with Clene Nanomedicine. The loan was provided by the state’s Neighborhood BusinessWorks program within the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

At ASCO 2021 in June of last year, SQZ Biotech showcased a glimpse of its unorthodox cell therapy manufacturing tech. And on Wednesday, the Watertown, MA, company announced that its first-generation system showed comparable or better performance than a conventional clean-room-based manufacturing process.

The study was non-clinical. Clinical trials are expected by the first half of 2023.

SQZ’s device opens up a temporary window by cell-squeezing to deliver cargoes into cells. Its average processing time was less than six hours per batch, which is more than half the time than conventional methods. The company is planning to use the technology in its first red blood cell derived program for celiac disease. That IND is set to be submitted in the first half of 2023, the company said.

Last week, Taiwan-based CDMO Bora Pharmaceuticals announced that it acquired Eden Biologics. Now, it says that purchase has helped established Bora Biologics, expanding into the biopharmaceutical market.

The acquisition of the company’s assets, which are located in the Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park in Taiwan, is helping Bora build its presence in the biopharma world by expanding production capacity of cell lines for the production of protein drugs. It will also improve the quality control and inspection specifications, as well as cell bank generation. The facility has four 500-liter bioreactors that have been approved by European and Taiwanese regulators.