Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Wednes­day evening signed in­to law a short-term gov­ern­ment fund­ing deal to end the longest shut­down in gov­ern­ment his­to­ry, which al­so in­cludes sev­er­al pro­vi­sions for the FDA.

The new law sets up an­oth­er round of user-fee fund­ing for over-the-counter drugs at the FDA through Oc­to­ber 2030, and it al­so calls on the FDA to im­prove the process for com­pa­nies look­ing to switch a pre­scrip­tion drug to a non­pre­scrip­tion, or OTC, drug.

The broad­er fund­ing agree­ment in the law, how­ev­er, on­ly lasts un­til Jan. 30, set­ting up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­oth­er show­down that could again dis­rupt many gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions.

Un­der the new OTC pro­vi­sion, com­pa­nies seek­ing an OTC switch can sub­mit a writ­ten re­quest for a meet­ing with the FDA to talk through how to ad­dress po­ten­tial risks, and what ev­i­dence and stud­ies might be need­ed.

Pfiz­er said Thurs­day it has com­plet­ed its up to $10 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of obe­si­ty biotech Met­sera.

It sig­nals the of­fi­cial end to a high-stakes, heat­ed bid­ding war be­tween Pfiz­er and No­vo Nordisk that got both the courts and the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion in­volved. Met­sera ul­ti­mate­ly ac­cept­ed Pfiz­er’s of­fer late last Fri­day, af­ter the FTC warned the biotech that No­vo’s bid was risky un­der US an­titrust law.

The deal gives Pfiz­er a fresh op­por­tu­ni­ty in the obe­si­ty space af­ter its pre­vi­ous at­tempts to en­ter the mar­ket end­ed in fail­ure.

“By ac­quir­ing Met­sera, we are di­rect­ing our re­sources to­ward one of the most im­pact­ful and high-growth ther­a­peu­tic ar­eas and po­si­tion­ing our­selves to de­fine it,” Pfiz­er CEO Al­bert Bourla said in a Thurs­day state­ment.

The UK has again ex­tend­ed the dead­line for phar­ma com­pa­nies to de­cide whether to ex­it the coun­try’s drug re­bate scheme.

The UK gov­ern­ment and the As­so­ci­a­tion of the British Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal In­dus­try agreed to a new dead­line of Dec. 16 for drug­mak­ers to leave the UK’s Vol­un­tary Scheme for Brand­ed Med­i­cines Pric­ing and Ac­cess, the trade group said in a Thurs­day state­ment. The pre­vi­ous dead­line was Nov. 14, af­ter get­ting pushed back twice al­ready.

VPAG is the per­cent­age of sales a com­pa­ny pays back to the UK’s Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice. Drug­mak­ers have been lob­by­ing for the gov­ern­ment to low­er its VPAG rate, but the near­ly 23% rate re­mains un­changed af­ter drug pric­ing deal talks col­lapsed in Au­gust. Since then, phar­ma com­pa­nies have been re­think­ing in­vest­ments in the UK over con­cerns that the gov­ern­ment isn’t do­ing enough to pro­mote the sec­tor.