Novo Nordisk’s Bio Innovation Hub goes west: The Danish pharma’s early-stage R&D unit is partnering with MBC BioLabs, an incubator in the San Francisco Bay Area that has helped launch more than 300 companies since 2013. Novo’s Bio Innovation Hub is based in Cambridge, MA, but has expanded to include partnerships with institutions in New York, Canada and Portal Innovations in Chicago. The work in the Bay Area will expand its aim of “co-creation of new therapeutic concepts in particular into cardio-metabolic space,” according to Uli Stilz, head of the Bio Innovation Hub. Novo can invest in new companies out of the incubator, form R&D pacts or make other deals, he added.
Another Tpoxx order for SIGA: The US government signed a $9 million procurement deal for Tpoxx, or tecovirimat, which is used to treat smallpox and has been of interest amid another mpox outbreak. Another US federal agency exercised a procurement option for Tpoxx for $113 million last month.