Sarep­ta’s lead gene ther­a­py $SRPT may be on clin­i­cal hold, but the brash Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy com­pa­ny is con­tin­u­ing its deep dive in­to the field, hand­ing over $30 mil­lion in an eq­ui­ty in­vest­ment in Lac­er­ta in ex­change for a group of CNS ther­a­pies, in­clud­ing one pro­gram fo­cused on Pompe dis­ease.

The biotech re­port­ed the deal just af­ter mar­ket close on Wednes­day, along with a Q2 state­ment show­ing grow­ing sales vol­ume for Ex­ondys 51.

In the deal with Lac­er­ta — a spin­out from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da with ex­per­tise in AAV vec­tor tech — Sarep­ta will take over clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment af­ter the pri­vate com­pa­ny has wrapped pre­clin­i­cal work. The pact gives Sarep­ta 11 gene ther­a­py pro­grams, a big part of the 20 it has hus­tled in­to the pipeline.

The clin­i­cal hold for Sarep­ta’s gene ther­a­py for DMD came just days ago, trig­gered by what the biotech said was a prob­lem on the man­u­fac­tur­ing side of things. The hold came short­ly af­ter the biotech whipped up some in­tense en­thu­si­asm for their work based on strong, but very ear­ly, re­spons­es in the clin­ic.

Sarep­ta has been wheel­ing and deal­ing its way to an ex­pand­ed pipeline in the wake of the con­tro­ver­sial OK for Ex­ondys 51, a land­mark ad­vance on­ly made pos­si­ble by Janet Wood­cock’s in­sis­tence that the drug should be OK’d de­spite the lack of ef­fi­ca­cy da­ta. That de­ci­sion proved un­pop­u­lar in­side the FDA, but wild­ly suc­cess­ful in the dis­ease com­mu­ni­ty that sup­port­ed it through ap­proval.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

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.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.