WuXi AppTec’s sales are be­com­ing even more in­creas­ing­ly de­pen­dent on the US de­spite the ser­vice provider not yet ful­ly shak­ing off con­cerns over its ties with the Chi­nese mil­i­tary.

The com­pa­ny said its US rev­enue reached 31.25 bil­lion Chi­nese yuan ($4.5 bil­lion) last year, which is a 34.3% in­crease com­pared to the year pri­or. The US now makes up 72% of its to­tal rev­enue, the high­est it's been since 2022. Mean­while, its full-year sales in Eu­rope and Chi­na have dipped.

The threat of the Biose­cure Act to WuXi AppTec’s sales has been fad­ing. While its US rev­enue de­clined through 2024, it saw an in­crease start­ing at the be­gin­ning of last year.

But WuXi AppTec is still un­der watch from US law­mak­ers. Last month, the Pen­ta­gon added the man­u­fac­tur­er to a list of com­pa­nies it said aid the Chi­nese mil­i­tary, but quick­ly with­drew the doc­u­ment.

No­var­tis is the lat­est drug­mak­er to in­vest in its Chi­nese foot­print, with a pledge of more than 3.3 bil­lion yuan ($480 mil­lion) to bol­ster two man­u­fac­tur­ing and R&D sites.

The com­pa­ny will pour 1.5 bil­lion yuan ($218 mil­lion) in­to ex­pand­ing its tablets and cap­sules site in the Chang­ping dis­trict of Bei­jing, ac­cord­ing to a Sun­day re­lease in Chi­nese. Around 1.8 bil­lion yuan ($262 mil­lion) will go to launch­ing the "sec­ond phase" of the drug­mak­er’s Chi­na head­quar­ters and R&D fa­cil­i­ty in Shang­hai. It was­n't clear what that phase en­tailed, and No­var­tis did­n't im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment be­fore pub­li­ca­tion.

No­var­tis joins the ranks of As­traZeneca and Eli Lil­ly, which have al­so made re­cent in­vest­ments in Chi­na. The pledges come at a time when West­ern drug­mak­ers are look­ing to tap in­to Chi­na's ear­ly-stage re­search.

In a rare move, the FDA last week post­ed pho­tographs of di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings as part of a warn­ing let­ter for a Daman, In­dia-based drug man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty.

The pho­tographs are the lat­est sign that FDA Com­mis­sion­er Mar­ty Makary is tak­ing a tougher stance on for­eign drug man­u­fac­tur­ers.

Fol­low­ing a five-day unan­nounced in­spec­tion last Ju­ly, the FDA warn­ing let­ter is­sued to Pat­cos Cos­met­ics de­scribes "in­san­i­tary con­di­tions," par­tic­u­lar­ly in the sinks in the pro­duc­tion area that Pat­cos used "as a source of wa­ter for clean­ing pro­duc­tion equip­ment." The com­pa­ny's web­site says that it man­u­fac­tures oral care and aerosols on a con­tract ba­sis.

The agency pub­lished the fol­low­ing pho­to of the sinks as part of the let­ter:

A group of biotech in­vestors will meet with mem­bers of a con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion that's been charged with keep­ing the US com­pet­i­tive in biotech and pro­tect­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, amid the rise of Chi­na's own life sci­ences in­dus­try and shift­ing pric­ing dy­nam­ics around the globe.

Known as the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Com­mis­sion on Emerg­ing Biotech­nol­o­gy (NSCEB), the group was es­tab­lished in 2021, and has been hold­ing ses­sions with biotech stake­hold­ers, as well as hold­ing lis­ten­ing events around the US. On Tues­day, it will meet with at least sev­en biotech in­vestors, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from JP Mor­gan, Pfiz­er, and sev­er­al oth­er ven­ture cap­i­tal firms, End­points News has learned.

Ac­cord­ing to an agen­da and at­tendee list re­viewed by End­points, the group will dis­cuss the com­mis­sion’s pri­or­i­ties, the im­pacts of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s push to low­er drug prices, FDA un­cer­tain­ty and IP pro­tec­tions.

The FDA ap­proved a high-dose ver­sion of No­vo Nordisk's block­buster weight loss in­jec­tion We­govy, giv­ing its go-ahead about two months faster than nor­mal thanks to a vouch­er re­ceived from the com­mis­sion­er's pro­gram.

Thurs­day's ap­proval is based on da­ta re­leased in Jan­u­ary, when No­vo re­port­ed that pa­tients giv­en the 7.2 mg dose had an av­er­age weight loss of 20.7% af­ter 72 weeks. That was bet­ter than the 17.5% weight loss for peo­ple giv­en the al­ready-ap­proved 2.4 mg dose in the tri­al.

While the high-dose We­govy is stronger than the pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved ver­sion, it is slight­ly be­hind its com­peti­tor, Eli Lil­ly's Zep­bound. In its piv­otal tri­al, the 15 mg dose of Lil­ly’s GIP/GLP-1 ag­o­nist, ap­proved in No­vem­ber 2023, achieved 22.5% weight loss at 72 weeks.

UCB has se­lect­ed Gwin­nett Coun­ty, GA, as the lo­ca­tion for its new bi­o­log­ics fac­to­ry. The 460,000-square-foot fa­cil­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to cost $2 bil­lion and will sup­ply bi­o­log­ics to the US mar­ket, a spokesper­son told End­points News. The site will cre­ate 330 new jobs.

Chi­na is on the fore­front of phar­ma com­pa­nies’ minds, and Ab­b­Vie is no ex­cep­tion. The com­pa­ny’s se­nior vice pres­i­dent Jerome Bouy­er vis­it­ed Chi­na this week, not­ing that Ab­b­Vie is “ac­tive­ly” look­ing to part­ner with lo­cal clin­i­cal re­search cen­ters and “in­no­v­a­tive” com­pa­nies.