A drug man­u­fac­tur­er is look­ing to end a suit brought on by a Seat­tle-based biotech.

Em­cure Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a Pune, In­dia-based man­u­fac­tur­er of gener­ic drugs, is press­ing a court in Wash­ing­ton to toss out a suit brought on by HDT Bio over a vac­cine to pre­vent Covid-19.

The cur­rent mo­tion filed by Em­cure on Fri­day seeks to dis­miss the case on sev­er­al grounds, par­tial­ly be­cause the court has no au­thor­i­ty over an In­di­an com­pa­ny, Em­cure says, and be­cause there is no way that Em­cure could dam­age HDT.

“HDT Bio Corp. hauled Em­cure Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals Ltd. an In­di­an gener­ic drug man­u­fac­tur­er and dis­trib­u­tor with no Wash­ing­ton con­tacts, in­to this Court so it could dis­par­age Em­cure, dam­age its rep­u­ta­tion, and, at the same time, cre­ate pub­lic­i­ty for it­self,” the mo­tion said. “The Com­plaint’s bloat­ed bil­lion-dol­lar dam­ages de­mand shows this case for what it is: a made-for-head­lines hit piece.”

The mo­tion claims that the al­le­ga­tions from HDT arise from agree­ments be­tween HDT and Em­cure’s sub­sidiary Gen­no­va Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. HDT ini­tial­ly part­nered with Gen­no­va in Ju­ly 2020 to help with the po­ten­tial vac­cine’s de­vel­op­ment in In­dia, where the coun­try’s reg­u­la­tor re­cent­ly signed off on Phase II and III tri­als. How­ev­er, HDT has al­ready sued Gen­no­va in the Lon­don Court of In­ter­na­tion­al Ar­bi­tra­tion. Em­cure al­so al­leges that does not have any con­trol over Gen­no­va.

The mo­tion al­so states that HDT did not iden­ti­fy its trade se­crets, al­leg­ing that HDT’s de­scrip­tion of the trade se­crets in ques­tion is too vague and, by its very own al­le­ga­tions, are pub­licly dis­closed in patents which can­not form a prop­er le­gal ba­sis to as­sert a claim for trade se­cret mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion.

No ac­tion has been tak­en yet by the court.

The ini­tial suit filed by HDT in March stat­ed that Em­cure sought to cut ties with HDT, file patents on HDT tech and go pub­lic on the strength of the vac­cine. HDT al­leged in its suit that Em­cure and Gen­no­va took over, planned for a pub­lic stock of­fer­ing, and then nev­er looked back, even re­fus­ing to share clin­i­cal da­ta with HDT.

“Gen­no­va’s ul­ti­mate re­fusal to pro­vide ei­ther Phase II or Phase III clin­i­cal da­ta killed a po­ten­tial $100,000,000 deal with an ex­ist­ing HDT part­ner,” HDT al­leged in its orig­i­nal suit.

HDT was backed with an $8.2 mil­lion NIH grant and was look­ing to de­vel­op its self-am­pli­fy­ing RNA vac­cine, or saR­NA vac­cine, which al­so us­es the firm’s pro­pri­etary lipid nanopar­ti­cle tech. The com­plaint is filled with claims that HDT’s vac­cine will out­per­form the cur­rent­ly au­tho­rized mR­NA vac­cines, claim­ing that it is “safer, cheap­er, more portable, and like­ly more ef­fec­tive than the mR­NA vac­cines on the mar­ket.” How­ev­er, to date, no saR­NA vac­cine has ever been ap­proved by the FDA.

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.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.