Af­ter a whop­ping $4 bil­lion as­set buy from Nim­bus Ther­a­peu­tics, along with a $400 mil­lion deal with Hutchmed for a col­orec­tal can­cer drug, Take­da ex­ec­u­tives tout­ed pipeline op­ti­mism on its lat­est earn­ings call this week.

That’s be­cause the TYK2 in­hibitor for pso­ri­a­sis Take­da is get­ting from Nim­bus, along with the Hutchmed fruquin­tinib com­mer­cial­iza­tion out­side of Chi­na, are just two of what it re­ports are 10 late-stage de­vel­op­ment pro­grams of promis­ing can­di­dates.

An­oth­er of those is its dengue vac­cine Qden­ga, which notched vac­cine ap­proval in the Eu­ro­pean Union in De­cem­ber, while the US FDA is con­tin­u­ing to re­view it un­der pri­or­i­ty re­view. Re­views are on­go­ing in en­dem­ic coun­tries, and the vac­cine is al­ready ap­proved in In­done­sia as well as Nor­way, Ice­land and the UK.

Liv­tenci­ty, al­ready ap­proved in the US for post-trans­plant cy­tomegalovirus (CMV), got a nod from the EU in No­vem­ber.

CEO Christophe We­ber said Take­da is al­so plan­ning a US sub­mis­sion for TAK-755 to treat the rare dis­ease con­gen­i­tal throm­bot­ic throm­bo­cy­topenic pur­pu­ra (cTTP) this year.

In its mid-pipeline, We­ber called out TAK-861 for nar­colep­sy and TAK-341 in mul­ti­ple sys­tem at­ro­phy, both in Phase II stud­ies.

“We are pro­gress­ing on our jour­ney to build one of the most ex­cit­ing and di­verse pipelines in the in­dus­try,” We­ber said.

For its fis­cal Q3 year to date, Take­da re­port­ed sales of 3.07 bil­lion yen ($23.4 bil­lion), an in­crease of 13.9% over the same pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od. En­tyvio for ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis and Crohn’s dis­ease was its top sales earn­er at 547.9 bil­lion yen ($4.18 bil­lion), and a sub­stan­tial in­crease of 38.6% year-over-year

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.

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.

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.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

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.