Fin­land-based TILT Bio­ther­a­peu­tics an­nounced to­day it raised €22 mil­lion in the fi­nal close of a sec­ond round of fi­nanc­ing to push its on­colyt­ic virus pipeline in­to Phase II tri­als. The com­pa­ny raised €10 mil­lion in the first round in June of last year.

A chunk of the sec­ond round, €5.9 mil­lion, comes from the Eu­ro­pean In­no­va­tion Coun­cil Fund with an­oth­er €2.1 mil­lion grant from EIC’s Ac­cel­er­a­tor pro­gram.

The mon­ey will go to­ward its ear­ly-stage pipeline, in­clud­ing its lead as­set, TILT-123, which the biotech de­scribes as an on­colyt­ic virus ther­a­py “armed” with two hu­man cy­tokines. The com­pa­ny’s TILT can­di­dates, which can be in­ject­ed lo­cal­ly or sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, are de­signed to en­hance T cell ther­a­pies by break­ing down the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment and elim­i­nat­ing its abil­i­ty to sup­press im­mune re­spons­es to can­cer.

TILT-123 is still in Phase I tri­als and is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in sol­id tu­mors, melanoma, ovar­i­an can­cer, head and neck can­cer and lung can­cer.

The com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2013 as a spin­out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki, but has since snagged some big-name phar­mas to test out TILT-123, like the Mer­ck KGaA and Pfiz­er Al­liance. They’re test­ing out TILT-123 in com­bi­na­tion with the PD-L1 in­hibitor, Baven­cio, in head and neck can­cer. For ovar­i­an and re­frac­to­ry non-small cell lung can­cer, TILT is teamed up with MSD (Mer­ck) to com­bine it with Keytru­da.

“Our tri­als are pro­gress­ing well through Phase I, and this new fund­ing will sup­port us in pro­gress­ing them in­to Phase II, an­oth­er key step for these new ther­a­pies to reach pa­tients in a range of can­cers,” said founder and CEO Ak­seli Hem­min­ki.

In 2019, the com­pa­ny al­so ex­pand­ed in­to Chi­na with a col­lab­o­ra­tion with pri­vate­ly-owned Bio­theus to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize TILT-123 in the coun­try.

The EMA released updated recommendations today for the use of JAK inhibitors (JAKi) after reviewing data from several clinical trials that showed increased incidents of issues in certain patients who have rheumatoid arthritis and other risk factors.

The EMA noted malignancy, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), serious infections, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and mortality in some patients.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Catalent will be manufacturing a low-cost version of the opioid overdose treatment naloxone as part of a contract with Harm Reduction Therapeutics.

Catalent plans to manufacture the treatment at its facility in Morrisville, NC. No financial details on the deal were disclosed.

Harm Reduction was granted priority review status for the NDA on its spray last year. The company has been working on a naloxone product since 2017. It is anticipating approval in July of this year and a US launch in early 2024.

Last year, South African-based vaccine manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare was facing reports that it had not received a single order for its manufactured Covid-19 shots and that manufacturing lines were sitting idle. But now the vaccine producer is looking to turn things around.

Aspen’s disclosure of its financial results in March unveiled that manufacturing revenue had decreased by 12% to R 603 million ($33.8 million), which Lorraine Hill, Aspen Group’s COO, said is attributable to lower Covid vaccine sales.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is putting down more roots in the Bay Area.

The manufacturer opened the doors to a new cell therapy manufacturing facility next to the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus and on the university’s campus.

UCSF and Thermo Fisher have had a partnership since 2021, with the new site focusing on manufacturing cell therapeutics for certain cancers, including glioblastoma and multiple myeloma. The new site plans to use Thermo Fisher’s expertise in manufacturing services to help UCSF accelerate the development of cell therapies and eventually get them into the clinic, said Dan Herring, the general manager of cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher, in an interview with Endpoints News.