Boston-based Nirogy Therapeutics Inc.’s $16.5 million series A round is meant to enable a pipeline of small-molecule drugs targeting the solute carrier family of transporter proteins (SLCTs) embedded in the cell membrane, and let the firm bring its front oncology runner to the clinic in 2022.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. posted positive initial results from its ongoing phase III study of its monoclonal antibody cocktail, REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab), used as a passive vaccine, designed to provide immediate short-term passive immunity to prevent COVID-19 in people at high risk of infection due to household exposure to a COVID-19 patient. Eli Lilly and Co. reported upbeat news the same day, as the phase III Blaze-1 trial testing its antibody cocktail met its primary and key secondary endpoints.

In signing an executive order (EO) on strengthening American manufacturing Jan. 25, President Joe Biden made it clear that the order is aimed at more than infrastructure. While Biden’s Build Back Better Recovery Plan calls for investing hundreds of billions of dollars in buying American products and materials to modernize the nation’s infrastructure and increase its competitiveness, “it also means replenishing our stockpiles to enhance our national security,” the president said.

Following the FDA giving the green light to seven new medicines in December, it brought the approval total of new molecular entities (NMEs) in 2020 to 53, an amount that equals the number of new medicines that were approved in 1996 and ranking it second equal all-time just behind the 59 NMEs that were approved in 2018.