Oral GLP-1 scripts dip. Fierce Pharma’s Oral GLP-1 Tracker, updated October 9, shows Lilly’s Foundayo at 57,920 total scripts in its 26th week of launch, down 9.9 percent sequentially, while Novo’s oral Wegovy held at roughly 179,500 scripts, down 1.4 percent on the week, according to IQVIA data cited by Citi and Jefferies. Scripts for all major GLP-1s declined last week across diabetes and obesity care except Lilly’s Zepbound KwikPen; overall Zepbound scripts dipped below 800,000 (down 0.8 percent) and total Wegovy scripts fell 2.7 percent to 505,500. Jefferies now models $208 million in third-quarter Foundayo sales, in line with consensus. The pullback follows a September run in which Foundayo scripts surged 21 percent in a week, so this reads as weekly volatility rather than a trend break, but it trims the recent acceleration narrative for the oral GLP-1 race.
MHRA Class 2 recall. The UK’s MHRA issued a Class 2 medicines recall for Norgine Pharmaceuticals’ Pedmarqsi 80 mg/mL solution for infusion (alert EL(26)A/42), published October 12. No further defect details were available in the alert notice at the time of writing.
Multiply Labs raises $75M. The San Francisco robotics company announced a $75 million Series B on October 6, led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong with NantWorks, bringing its total capital raised to more than $100 million since 2016. New investors include AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne and Strange Ventures, alongside returning backers Casdin Capital, Lux Capital, Fifty Years, Ora Global and Founders Fund. Multiply Labs builds enclosed robotic clusters that automate manual steps in biologics manufacturing inside a drugmaker’s existing GMP cleanrooms; the company says the systems cut cost per dose by up to 74 percent and raise throughput by as much as 100 times versus manual processes, figures that have yet to be proven durable across commercial deployments.
NorthStar secures $185M. NorthStar Medical Technologies, the Beloit, Wisconsin radiopharmaceutical company, has lined up a multi-year growth capital facility of up to $185 million from Hercules Capital, including $100 million upfront, to expand isotope production and CDMO capacity at its campus. The company is a commercial-scale producer of no-carrier-added actinium-225, the alpha-emitting isotope in short supply for next-generation targeted radiotherapies, and says it serves more than 30 pharmaceutical and biotech customers, including several of the largest companies developing Ac-225 therapies. The financing was announced at the end of September, ahead of a planned high-capacity production line launch by year end.
HHS acting general counsel exits. Bob Foster, the acting general counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, is no longer at the agency, according to Endpoints News, which confirmed the departure after its inquiry to his government email went unanswered. This is single-sourced trade reporting behind a paywall; no agency statement was available at the time of writing.