An­oth­er blank check com­pa­ny has filed to ride the biotech IPO wave, which shows no sign of crash­ing any­time soon.

Turmer­ic Ac­qui­si­tion, a spe­cial pur­pose ac­qui­si­tion com­pa­ny formed by Boston-based MPM Cap­i­tal, an­nounced on Mon­day that it’s look­ing for a $100 mil­lion raise. It will be one of sev­er­al to hit Nas­daq in a his­toric year for SPACs. It’s not clear which biotechs are in Tumer­ic’s sights — but it says it’s go­ing af­ter in­no­v­a­tive com­pa­nies with “new modal­i­ties”.

“For many years, drug de­vel­op­ment in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech in­dus­tries has been dom­i­nat­ed by two modal­i­ties: small mol­e­cules and pro­tein bi­o­log­ics (such as an­ti­bod­ies). How­ev­er, in re­cent years, new modal­i­ties have emerged with land­mark ap­provals by the US FDA and the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cines Agency. These new modal­i­ties in­clude cell ther­a­pies, gene ther­a­pies, and nu­cle­ic acid ther­a­pies, in­clud­ing RNA ther­a­pies […] We be­lieve New Modal­i­ties have the po­ten­tial to in­crease the rate of in­no­va­tion and trans­la­tion of sci­ence in­to trans­for­ma­tive ther­a­pies,” Tumer­ic’s S-1 fil­ing states.

Back in 2014, SPACs were 3% of the IPO mar­ket. In Ju­ly, Nas­daq’s head of cap­i­tal mar­kets Jay Heller told End­points News they were al­most 35% of all new list­ings. Last week, it was 5:01 Ac­qui­si­tion — a 5AM Ven­tures-backed blank check com­pa­ny — fil­ing to go pub­lic, seek­ing an $80 mil­lion raise.

More than 50 biotechs have filed for IPOs this year, Nas­daq head of health­care list­ings Jor­dan Saxe told End­points last week. On Fri­day, 56 biotechs had raised $11.3 bil­lion. Saxe made a low-end es­ti­mate that there will be 65-70 biotech IPOs by the end of the year.

Janet Woodcock may have one of the most historically long and drug-intense tenures in FDA history, but her new role is outside of all things pharma and the once-acting FDA commissioner isn’t looking back.

“No I really don’t look back,” Woodcock told Endpoints News via email on Monday morning. “Yes I will be transitioning. Longer discussion on infrastructure needed.”

Pfizer has agreed to pay $290,000 to settle allegations of questionable copay coupon practices in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Vermont from 2014 to 2018.

While the company has not admitted any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, Pfizer has agreed to issue restitution checks to about 5,000 consumers.

A Pfizer spokesperson said the company has “enhanced its co-pay coupons to alleviate the concerns raised by states and agreed to a $30,000 payment to each.”

A judge in Delaware has ruled against Astellas Pharma and Gilead in a long-running patent case over Pfizer-onwed Hospira’s generic version of Lexiscan.

The case kicked off in 2018, after Hospira submitted an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for approval to market a generic version of Gilead’s Lexiscan. The drug is used in myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), a type of nuclear stress test.

The area of Ireland famous for Blarney Castle and its cliffsides along the Atlantic Ocean is seeing Merck KGaA expand its commitment there.

The German drug manufacturer is expanding its membrane and filtration manufacturing capabilities in Ireland. The company will invest approximately €440 million ($470 million) to increase membrane manufacturing capacity in Carrigtwohill, Ireland, and build a new manufacturing facility at Blarney Business Park, in County Cork, Ireland.

Twenty House Democrats, including Reps. Katie Porter of California and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, are calling on Senate leaders to move quickly with a reconciliation bill (meaning they only need a simple majority for passage) with prescription drug pricing reforms, and to include adding new authority for Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

They also called on the Senate to specifically follow suit with the House passage of a $35 per month insulin cap (as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s deadline for a vote on that provision has come and gone), and to cap Medicare Part D costs at $2,000 per year for seniors.

As the cases of monkeypox now sit at well over 100 worldwide and have spread to multiple continents, the orders for any type of vaccine against monkeypox are seeing nations and medical bodies looking to get their hands on anything and everything. And now SIGA Technologies seems to be getting in on the action.

According to Euronews, SIGA Technologies, a pharmaceutical company that is focused on providing medical countermeasures to biological and chemical attacks, is now in talks with several European authorities looking to stockpile its antiviral that can counter monkeypox. The drug known as tecovirimat or Tpoxx was approved by the FDA in 2018 as a vaccine for smallpox but was approved by the European Medicines Agency to also act against monkeypox, cowpox and complications from immunization with vaccinia.