A Mer­ck an­tibi­ot­ic has been re­called af­ter re­ports of the pres­ence of glass par­tic­u­late mat­ter, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Tues­day.

One lot of Cu­bicin will be re­called, which in­cludes about 22,000 vials of the 500mg dose of the in­tra­venous­ly ad­min­is­tered drug.

The re­call comes af­ter a piece of glass was found in a vial, rais­ing safe­ty con­cerns.

“Our high­est pri­or­i­ties are the health and safe­ty of pa­tients and the qual­i­ty of our med­i­cines and vac­cines,” said Richard Haupt, the VP of vac­cines & in­fec­tious dis­eases. “We sin­cere­ly re­gret any in­con­ve­nience caused by this re­call.”

Cu­bicin treats skin in­fec­tions in both adults and chil­dren, and Staphy­lo­coc­cus au­reus in­fec­tions in chil­dren, and is pack­aged in sin­gle-dose, 10 mL glass vials.

Mer­ck is ar­rang­ing for the re­turn of the prod­ucts via UPS Next Day Air.

The FDA has been no­ti­fied of the re­call, Mer­ck said, though the FDA on Wednes­day post­ed the no­tice to its re­call page.

Sep­a­rate­ly, one lot of Bryant Ranch Prepack’s mus­cle re­lax­ers have been re­called as well. The Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pa­ny is re­call­ing 30- and 90-count bot­tles of metho­car­bamol 500mg af­ter some pack­ages of 500mg tablets were found to con­tain 750mg tablets.

If a pa­tient were to take a 750mg tablet, that could lead to ex­ces­sive cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem de­pres­sion, which re­sults in nau­sea, se­da­tion, faint­ing, seizures and co­mas. So far, there have not been any re­ports of side ef­fects re­sult­ing from the re­call.

The prod­uct can be iden­ti­fied by its red and white la­bel with a yel­low bor­der at the top and bot­tom of the pack­ag­ing. The drug was dis­trib­uted across the coun­try.

Flagship Pioneering, the incubator of Moderna and dozens of other biotechs, says it has landed upon tens of thousands of previously undiscovered human proteins. The VC shop wants to potentially turn them into therapeutics.

Like other drug developers that have turned proteins into therapeutics (think insulin for diabetes), Flagship’s latest creation, ProFound Therapeutics, wants to tap into this new trove of proteins as part of its mission to treat indications ranging from rare diseases to cancer to immunological diseases.

New data from HHS show that more than 162,000 courses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid were administered across the US over the past week, continuing a streak of increased usage of the pill, and signaling not only rising case numbers but more awareness of how to access it.

In comparison to this week, about 670,000 courses of the Pfizer pill have been administered across the first five months since Paxlovid has been on the US market, averaging about 33,000 courses administered per week in that time.

The FDA is offering more of an explanation of the guardrails around its program that may soon allow states to import prescription drugs in some select circumstances from Canada, but only if such imports will result in significant cost reductions for consumers.

While the agency has yet to sign off on any of the 5 state plans in the works so far, and PhRMA’s suit to block the Trump-era rule allowing such imports is stalled, the new Q&A guidance spells out the various restrictions that states will have to abide by, potentially signaling that a state approval is coming.

The current monkeypox outbreak is now at a phase where some governments are approaching a point of concern, at least enough to start stockpiling vaccines.

In response, at least one government is placing its order with vaccine manufacturer Bavarian Nordic to secure sufficient supply for vaccinating individuals. According to the company, it has inked a supply contract with an undisclosed country for the company’s smallpox vaccine, called Jynneos. The aim is to ensure there will be enough supply to meet the undisclosed country’s requirements for vaccinating individuals at risk for monkeypox in the short to medium term. The vaccine is approved for use against monkeypox by the FDA and Health Canada.

Leading the way to increase access to cheaper drugs worldwide, Pfizer said Wednesday it will provide all current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines available in the US or EU on a not-for-profit basis to about 1.2 billion people in 45 lower-income countries.

Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda are the first five countries to sign on to this accord, which will also seek to blaze new paths for quick and efficient regulatory and procurement processes to reduce the usual delays in making new medicines and vaccines available in these countries.