One of the main ques­tions fac­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion as it seeks to low­er pre­scrip­tion drug prices through ex­ec­u­tive or­der is: How?

Tues­day’s cab­i­net meet­ing seemed to pro­vide an an­swer.

For the first time, top mem­bers of the ad­min­is­tra­tion pub­licly linked the Com­merce De­part­ment’s 232 in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts — and tar­iffs that are ex­pect­ed to fol­low — with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump's "most fa­vored na­tion" plan to get drug­mak­ers to re­duce prices in the US.

Com­merce Sec­re­tary Howard Lut­nick told the pres­i­dent that the com­bi­na­tion of the 232 in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the most fa­vored na­tion pro­gram, which is be­ing led in part by HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "re­al­ly gives Bob­by the tools to go ex­e­cute your plan."

In an ef­fort to curb “in­ap­pro­pri­ate stock­pil­ing,” Eli Lil­ly said it has mo­men­tar­i­ly halt­ed sup­ply of its block­buster drug Moun­jaro in the UK, just days be­fore it plans to raise its price, a com­pa­ny spokesper­son told End­points News. 

Lil­ly is fo­cused on ful­fill­ing or­ders al­ready placed for Moun­jaro be­fore al­low­ing new or­ders to re­sume on Sept. 1 af­ter the “month-end cut-off,” the spokesper­son added.

The com­pa­ny urges pa­tients to or­der Moun­jaro on­ly based on their cur­rent treat­ment plan to re­duce any fur­ther dis­rup­tions in the UK. The spokesper­son added that there are “le­gal pro­tec­tions” in place by the UK's Med­i­cines and Health­care prod­ucts Reg­u­la­to­ry Agency (MHRA) to pre­vent phar­ma­cies from stock­pil­ing.

Fol­low­ing the FDA's more lim­it­ed ap­provals of sev­er­al Covid-19 vac­cines on Wednes­day, CBER Di­rec­tor Vinay Prasad laid out why the agency de­cid­ed to re­scind Pfiz­er's emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion for its mR­NA vac­cine for younger chil­dren, and where it dis­agreed with the com­pa­ny.

In an agency memo re­leased late Wednes­day, Prasad said Pfiz­er ar­gued to the agency that pulling its EUA could make health­care work­ers think there were safe­ty is­sues with its vac­cine. The com­pa­ny al­so said the ac­tion could cre­ate sup­ply short­ages, and that Mod­er­na's la­bel for its vac­cine "does not ad­dress chil­dren who be­gan their se­ries with the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech Covid-19."

In the memo, Prasad said the CDC had al­ready pro­vid­ed guid­ance on how to con­tin­ue vac­cine se­ries for those who start­ed on Pfiz­er's vac­cine, and al­so that there was­n't ev­i­dence that Mod­er­na won't have enough sup­plies.

The FDA on Wednes­day ap­proved up­dat­ed for­mu­las of the Covid-19 vac­cines ahead of the fall res­pi­ra­to­ry sea­son, though the la­bels are more lim­it­ed than in years past.

Vac­cines were ap­proved for Pfiz­er, Mod­er­na and No­vavax for all adults 65 and old­er and peo­ple younger than 65 who are at high­er risk of se­vere dis­ease. Mod­er­na’s Spike­vax will be the on­ly shot avail­able for at-risk chil­dren 6 months to 5 years old af­ter the FDA pulled Pfiz­er's emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion for Comir­naty in that age range.

Pfiz­er has yet to ask for ap­proval for the youngest kids, so its ap­proval la­bel ap­plies to peo­ple 5 years and old­er. No­vavax's vac­cine was ap­proved for kids and adults 12 and old­er.

HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. an­nounced the ap­provals in a post on X.

In­di­v­ior said it is ex­e­cut­ing the first phase of a mul­ti­year re­struc­tur­ing plan to “max­i­mize the po­ten­tial” of its busi­ness, start­ing with lay­offs and re­al es­tate con­sol­i­da­tion.

The Vir­ginia-based biotech did not dis­close the num­ber of em­ploy­ees it plans to lay off. But the work­force cuts are ex­pect­ed to in­cur sev­er­ance-re­lat­ed charges of $16 mil­lion to $19 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to an SEC fil­ing shared Tues­day. In­di­v­ior had 1,094 em­ploy­ees at the end of 2024, an an­nu­al re­port states.

The com­pa­ny al­so plans to back out of cer­tain re­al es­tate projects, which could in­cur fees of $15 mil­lion to $22 mil­lion. It al­so ex­pects to in­cur con­sult­ing, le­gal and tax plan­ning ex­pens­es of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $8 mil­lion to $9 mil­lion.

In to­tal, these ear­ly moves mean the com­pa­ny will have to spend be­tween $39 mil­lion to $50 mil­lion for the over­haul in the third and fourth quar­ters of this year.

Wel­come to End­points News’ man­u­fac­tur­ing briefs, where we bring you es­sen­tial news on new builds, col­lab­o­ra­tions, re­calls and more.

Roche re­vealed fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on how it would spend its multi­bil­lion-dol­lar man­u­fac­tur­ing in­vest­ment in the US, an­nounc­ing on Mon­day that its sub­sidiary Genen­tech has start­ed build­ing a new site in Hol­ly Springs, NC, worth $700 mil­lion. The new fa­cil­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate more than 1,900 jobs and is sched­uled to be op­er­a­tional in 2029, ac­cord­ing to Roche.

The FDA hand­ed Telix Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals a com­plete re­sponse let­ter for its PET agent, co­de­named TLX250-CDx, the com­pa­ny said Thurs­day. TLX250-CDx is be­ing con­sid­ered for the di­ag­no­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of clear cell re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma. The agency cit­ed is­sues in the com­pa­ny's chem­istry, man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­trols, and re­quest­ed fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the scal­ing-up process for TLX250-CDx’s com­mer­cial use. Fur­ther, the FDA filed two Form 483s for two of Telix’s third-par­ty man­u­fac­tur­ers. Telix’s stock sank al­most 19% on the Aus­tralian stock ex­change. Telix’s li­cense part­ner, Hei­del­berg Phar­ma, was due to re­ceive a $70 mil­lion mile­stone pay­ment up­on the as­set's ap­proval.

San­doz is spend­ing CAD $220 mil­lion ($160 mil­lion) to “mod­ern­ize” its part­ner Del­pharm’s fa­cil­i­ties in Boucherville, Cana­da, with help from the Gov­ern­ment of Que­bec, ac­cord­ing to a Thurs­day re­lease. CAD $60 mil­lion ($43.6 mil­lion) is be­ing in­vest­ed by the provin­cial gov­ern­ment, an­oth­er CAD $60 mil­lion ($43.6 mil­lion) from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and CAD $100 mil­lion ($72.6 mil­lion) from pri­vate in­vestors.

Sai Life Sci­ences has com­plet­ed the sec­ond phase of its so-called Pro­duc­tion Block at its API man­u­fac­tur