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.

This loan will be go­ing to­ward equip­ment pur­chas­es that will sup­port the ex­pan­sion of Clene’s op­er­a­tions in Ce­cil Coun­ty, MD. Clene’s new 75,000-square-foot com­mer­cial man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty will pro­duce its lead drug can­di­date, CNM-Au8, a gold nanocrys­tal sus­pen­sion meant to treat ALS. The pur­chased cap­i­tal equip­ment will se­cure the loan.

The com­pa­ny an­tic­i­pates the po­ten­tial com­mer­cial­iza­tion of CNM-Au8and, their can­di­date in ALS pa­tients, to present topline da­ta in the third quar­ter of 2022 from a Phase II/III study.

How­ev­er, Clene has put stock in its can­di­date be­fore, with not-so-pos­i­tive re­sults. Clene re­port­ed Phase II as its can­di­date, say­ing the com­pound did not reach sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance on the pri­ma­ry or sec­ondary end­points. And though Clene claimed to see pos­i­tive sig­nals in ex­plorato­ry end­points that could sup­port an NDA, ex­perts at the time were not bull­ish on Clene’s prospects.

De­spite this, the state gov­ern­ment is still sup­port­ing Clene’s fa­cil­i­ty as in De­cem­ber of last year, when they re­ceived a $1 mil­lion grant award from the Mary­land De­part­ment of Hous­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (DHCD) to fur­ther sup­port the re­de­vel­op­ment of their fa­cil­i­ty. Mary­land Gov. Lar­ry Hogan took a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty and ac­cord­ing to the lo­cal news­pa­per the Ce­cil Whig. CSO Mark Morten­son said in the gov­er­nor’s tour that they would be­gin sell­ing the drug in 2024 if they clear all the FDA hur­dles and spark the need for more man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

Al­though Mary­land’s sup­port did help Clene’s stock $CLNN in­crease to­day by over 14%, they still have a huge hill to climb as their price has been down al­most 50% over the past six months.

Lonza has been expanding its reach across the globe, bringing sites in China and the US online this year, but now they are looking closer to home for their next major investment.

The Swiss manufacturer on Friday announced plans to construct a large-scale commercial drug fill and finish facility in the town of Stein, Switzerland. The new facility will be delivered through an investment of approximately CHF 500 million, or $519 million, and is expected to be completed in 2026. The facility will also be constructed on the same campus as Lonza’s current clinical drug product facility.

Earlier this year, Novartis touted its radioligand as a major piece to counter competition in the cancer space. However, the physical production of its products has had anything but a smooth ride.

In May, Novartis had to suspend production of Lutathera and Pluvicto, its two primary radiotherapies. According to the company, this was done out of an abundance of caution as a result of potential quality issues identified in its manufacturing. The production suspension impacts the commercial and clinical trial supply of the products.

Fujifilm’s spending spree into its CDMO arm is not slowing down.

The multinational announced on Wednesday that it will invest $1.6 billion to enhance and expand the cell culture manufacturing services of the CDMO arm of the Japanese conglomerate Fujifilm Diosynth.

The investment will enhance Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies’ sites in Hillerød, Denmark, and College Station, TX. The investment is expected to create approximately 450 jobs across both facilities.

Two weeks ago, Biohaven hit an all-time high in weekly Nurtec prescriptions. CEO Vlad Coric attributes at least some of that success to a new interactive Twitter campaign that encourages patients to free their feed of potential migraine triggers.

Earlier this month, Biohaven in partnership with Twitter launched the #RelieveYourFeed campaign that allows users to customize their app settings based on their migraine triggers.