Sanofi to­day joined with the oth­er two in­sulin jug­ger­nauts in the US to low­er the price of its best-sell­ing in­sulin prod­uct, Lan­tus (in­sulin glargine), by 78% and set a $35 cap on out-of-pock­et costs for Lan­tus for all pa­tients with com­mer­cial in­sur­ance. The price shifts will be­gin in Jan­u­ary 2024.

The shift from Sanofi fol­lows No­vo Nordisk’s up to 75% price cuts for its in­sulins, be­gin­ning in 2024, and Eli Lil­ly’s sim­i­lar 70% dis­count on its pop­u­lar Hu­ma­log in­sulin prod­uct, which will oc­cur in the fourth quar­ter of this year.

Olivi­er Bogillot

The three up­dates all take ef­fect af­ter the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment low­ered OOP costs to $35 per month for every­one on Medicare, and as an up­com­ing ma­jor change in Med­ic­aid pol­i­cy would leave these com­pa­nies and po­ten­tial­ly oth­ers on the hook for larg­er re­bates, cre­at­ing an in­cen­tive for com­pa­nies to watch their price in­creas­es.

“We launched our un­brand­ed bi­o­log­ic for Lan­tus at 60 per­cent less than the Lan­tus list price in June 2022 but, de­spite this pi­o­neer­ing low-price ap­proach, the health sys­tem was un­able to take ad­van­tage of it due to its in­her­ent struc­tur­al chal­lenges,” Olivi­er Bogillot, head of Sanofi’s US gen­er­al med­i­cines, said in a state­ment. “We are pleased to see oth­ers join our ef­forts to help pa­tients as we now ac­cel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion of the U.S. in­sulin mar­ket.”

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.

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.

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.