Ef­forts are un­der­way to de­vel­op a new chal­lenge virus for SARS-CoV-2, and a British CRO is mak­ing its case.

Open Or­phan said Mon­day that its sub­sidiary hVI­VO signed a con­tract with Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don to man­u­fac­ture such a chal­lenge virus. The con­tract is worth £3 mil­lion and hVI­VO will de­vel­op the virus based on new emerg­ing Covid-19 vari­ants of con­cern. The com­pa­ny hopes to then use the virus in fu­ture chal­lenge stud­ies.

Open Or­phan added the project will be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly, and man­u­fac­tur­ing is ex­pect­ed to be com­plete by the end of the year.

The CRO feels hVI­VO is well-suit­ed to the task be­cause of its past ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing on chal­lenge virus­es for the flu, RSV and the com­mon cold, in ad­di­tion to an ear­li­er ver­sion of SARS-CoV-2. That orig­i­nal Covid-19 strain is be­ing used in a chal­lenge study in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UK gov­ern­ment.

“The avail­abil­i­ty of a vari­ant SARS-CoV-2 virus will great­ly ex­pand the util­i­ty of the SARS-CoV-2 chal­lenge mod­el and al­low us to an­swer a wider range of im­por­tant sci­en­tif­ic ques­tions to aid con­trol of the pan­dem­ic as well as fa­cil­i­tate fur­ther test­ing of vac­cines de­signed against Covid-19,” — hVI­VO CSO An­drew Catch­pole said in a state­ment.

Dutch agency says Zol­gens­ma price should be cut in half

No­var­tis’ Zol­gens­ma drug for spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy is no­to­ri­ous for be­ing the most ex­pen­sive med­i­cine in the world at about $2.1 mil­lion. But the Dutch are try­ing to change that.

The Zor­gin­sti­tu­ut, the na­tion­al health care in­sti­tute of The Nether­lands, is push­ing to slash Zol­gens­ma’s price in half, per a state­ment re­leased Mon­day. The in­sti­tute not­ed that the price point does not re­flect the drug’s ef­fec­tive­ness, say­ing there is too lit­tle ev­i­dence the drug works to cost its cur­rent price.

It has rec­om­mend­ed that the Dutch gov­ern­ment not cov­er the costs of the med­i­cine un­less this price cut is met.

“The Zor­gin­sti­tu­ut en­sures that our care is and re­mains good and af­ford­able, all this to on­ly spend our mon­ey for health­care on valu­able treat­ments that are known to ac­tu­al­ly work,” the agency said in a state­ment. “We ul­ti­mate­ly make these com­pli­cat­ed but nec­es­sary choic­es for and on be­half of 17 mil­lion Dutch peo­ple, so that every­one con­tin­ues to have ac­cess to good and af­ford­able care in the fu­ture.”

Gilead is mounting its counterfeit drug lawsuit, naming two “kingpins” and a complex network of conspirators who allegedly sold imitation bottles of its HIV meds, some of which ended up in US pharmacies.

The pharma giant on Wednesday provided an update on what it called a “large-scale, sophisticated counterfeiting conspiracy,” accusing two new defendants of “leading and orchestrating” a scheme to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate drugs posing as meds such as Biktarvy and Descovy.

It was great getting back to a live ESMO conference/webinar in Paris followed by a live pop-up event for the Endpoints 11 in Boston. We’re staying on the road in October with our return for a live/streaming EUBIO22 in London.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Nooman Haque and I are once again jumping back into the thick of it with a slate of virtual and live events on October 12. I’ll get the ball rolling with a virtual fireside chat with Novo Nordisk R&D chief Marcus Schindler, covering their pipeline plans and BD work.

Sarepta Therapeutics has filed the data needed for an FDA accelerated approval, which would be the biotech’s fourth if granted by the agency.

The biotech has yet to complete confirmatory trials for those first three conditional nods. The filing for its fourth Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, disclosed Thursday, is not a surprise. Sarepta said in late-July it would do so after releasing positive results for the Roche-partnered gene therapy.

While it is not uncommon for a biotech to go down the route of having the product manufactured by a contract organization, one small biotech is looking to keep its card close to its chest.

Vor Biopharma has started manufacturing operations at an in-house facility at its HQ in Cambridge, MA after beginning construction last summer.

According to the biotech, the facility aims to develop Vor’s hematopoietic stem cells (eHSCs) and CAR-T therapies for patients with blood cancers. The site will initially manufacture a clinical supply of its candidate VCAR33allo to support its IND, which is slated to be submitted in the first half of next year. It also plans to transfer the production of VOR33 to the facility. Vor is getting to work quickly as engineering runs for VCAR33allo has started this week.

The US government is all set to buy $10.7 million worth of Siga Technologies’ monkeypox oral antiviral, the company announced Thursday.

Of the total doses, $5.1 million worth of oral antivirals called Tpoxx (tecovirimat) will be delivered this year, with the US Department of Defense having the option of buying the rest at a later point.

The new contract follows an earlier one in which the government had purchased $7.4 million worth of Tpoxx from the company.