PBM Cap­i­tal’s Paul Man­ning has do­nat­ed $100 mil­lion to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, and it’s go­ing to be used to ad­vance drug de­vel­op­ment.

At a cer­e­mo­ny on cam­pus Fri­day, lead­ers from across the uni­ver­si­ty and UVA Health an­nounced the launch of the Paul and Di­ane Man­ning In­sti­tute of Biotech­nol­o­gy. State of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Vir­ginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Vir­ginia House of Del­e­gates Speak­er Todd Gilbert, were al­so present.

While al­so em­pha­siz­ing modal­i­ties such as cel­lu­lar ther­a­py, gene ther­a­py and nan­otech­nol­o­gy, the in­sti­tute’s main goal will be to help find new treat­ments and cures for “even the most chal­leng­ing and dev­as­tat­ing dis­eases,” ac­cord­ing to an an­nounce­ment from the uni­ver­si­ty. The in­sti­tute will al­so al­low UVA to ex­pand its clin­i­cal tri­al of­fer­ings.

The crown jew­el of the new in­sti­tute will be a new high-tech fa­cil­i­ty lo­cat­ed in Fontaine Re­search Park, on the west side of the uni­ver­si­ty’s cam­pus. While ad­di­tion­al de­tails such as the name are to be an­nounced at a lat­er date, the an­nounce­ment says that the fa­cil­i­ty will bring re­search, man­u­fac­tur­ing and pa­tient care space un­der one roof.

UVA’s provost and chief aca­d­e­m­ic of­fi­cer Ian Bau­com said in a state­ment that this is the type of fa­cil­i­ty “most uni­ver­si­ties can on­ly dream of,” adding that it will help the uni­ver­si­ty in terms of re­cruit­ing tal­ent.

The in­sti­tute, while lever­ag­ing $100 mil­lion from the Man­nings, will be sup­port­ed by an ini­tial in­vest­ment of $300 mil­lion. The re­main­ing $200 mil­lion comes from two oth­er en­ti­ties: $150 mil­lion from UVA, and the fi­nal $50 mil­lion from the state of Vir­ginia.

Man­ning got his wealth from the sale of PBM Prod­ucts, a com­pa­ny that makes pri­vate-la­bel in­fant for­mu­la. Fol­low­ing the sale of the com­pa­ny to Per­ri­go for $800 mil­lion, Man­ning start­ed up PBM Cap­i­tal in 2010.

Since then, PBM Cap­i­tal has had its hands in­volved in sev­er­al biotechs over the years, in­clud­ing Sali­o­Gen, Taysha Gene Ther­a­pies, and Can­del Ther­a­peu­tics — the com­pa­ny head­ed by for­mer GSK vet Paul Pe­ter Tak, once GSK’s chief im­munol­o­gy of­fi­cer. One of the biggest suc­cess­es was AveX­is, the gene ther­a­py out­fit ac­quired by No­var­tis in 2018 for $8.7 bil­lion.

A spokesper­son for the uni­ver­si­ty did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to End­points News.

Roche announced another leadership shuffle Thursday morning – the head of global product strategy, Teresa Graham, will take over as CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals in March while the company’s corporate executive committee will make a spot for Levi Garraway, CMO and executive VP of global product development.

Thomas Schinecker will take over the top spot as Roche group CEO in March, leaving his spot as head of diagnostics.

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.

Plant-based Covid-19 vaccine developer Medicago shut down this week with little fanfare. And its two subsidiaries, Medicago R&D and Medicago USA, are also closing their doors, according to a company news release.

The lone shareholder left standing, Japan-based Mitsubishi Chemical Group, “has determined not to make further investments in Medicago and to proceed with an orderly wind-up of its business and operations in Canada and in the United States.”

Sanofi expects its RSV antibody jointly developed with AstraZeneca will be available next season, executive VP of vaccines Thomas Triomphe announced on the company’s quarterly call.

Beyfortus, also known as nirsevimab, was approved in the EU back in November and is currently under FDA review with an expected decision coming in the third quarter of this year. The news comes as the FDA plans to hold advisory committee meetings over the next couple months to review RSV vaccines from Pfizer and GSK.