Wel­come to CPhI week!

Tues­day marked the open­ing of this year’s CPhI Glob­al con­fer­ence in Mi­lan, Italy, in what marks its re­turn to an on­site event for the first time since 2019.

In many ways, this year’s CPhI is dif­fer­ent for us here at End­points News. We aren’t on site — as we cer­tain­ly plan to be next year — so we can’t give you the in­side scoop you can ex­pect in the fu­ture. How­ev­er, our team has been close­ly fol­low­ing the biggest trends from the past year and are stay­ing abreast of what CPhI’s sta­ble of ex­perts are say­ing about the fu­ture of the in­dus­try.

First, man­ag­ing ed­i­tor Kyle Blanken­ship dives head­first in­to some of the biggest trends from the past 12 months in the man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try — and a few things to ex­pect in the year ahead.

Then, in the first of a se­ries of trend pieces, man­u­fac­tur­ing re­porter Josh Sul­li­van looks at the growth of the CMO in­dus­try, which is poised to take its place among the big dogs in terms of man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty in the com­ing years.

Josh then dives in­to the fu­ture of au­toma­tion in bio­phar­ma, the grow­ing role of con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ing in Chi­na, the sky-high con­fi­dence the in­dus­try has go­ing in­to 2022, and fi­nal­ly the lin­ger­ing ef­fects an in­spec­tion back­log could have on the in­dus­try writ large.

As al­ways, if you have any feed­back, we’d be hap­py to hear from you. En­joy CPhI, and if you’re in Mi­lan: Ciao!

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”

Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

The story of Amryt Pharma’s candidate for the genetic skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, will soon enter another chapter.

After the Irish drugmaker’s candidate, dubbed Oleogel-S10 and marketed as Filsuvez, was handed a CRL earlier this year, the company announced in a press release that it plans to submit a formal dispute resolution request for the company’s NDA for Oleogel-S10.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis made a name for himself in the 2020 election cycle as the darling of the pharma industry, accepting hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions, even from the likes of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

Those contributions have led Tillis to attempt to re-write patent laws in pharma’s favor, a move which failed to gain steam in 2019, and request for a third time since January that the FDA should help stop “the false narrative that patent protections are to blame for high drug prices.”