The Biose­cure Act has an­oth­er chance in Con­gress af­ter the Sen­ate passed a new ver­sion this week. But the lat­est it­er­a­tion stops short of tar­get­ing WuXi AppTec and WuXi Bi­o­log­ics, key fix­tures in US drug­mak­ers’ sup­ply chains.

The Sen­ate vot­ed on Thurs­day to at­tach Biose­cure as an amend­ment to the an­nu­al de­fense pol­i­cy bill. It seeks to curb US biotechs’ re­liance on Chi­nese sup­pli­ers over na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

Un­like last year’s pro­pos­al, which ex­plic­it­ly named the WuXi com­pa­nies and oth­ers in Chi­na, the re­vised bill lim­its its scope to com­pa­nies tied to Chi­na’s mil­i­tary based on ex­ist­ing gov­ern­ment watch lists. Those in­clude BGI Group and MGI Tech, but not the WuXi en­ti­ties.

John­son & John­son is re­port­ed­ly in talks to ac­quire a part­ner that’s de­vel­op­ing a linch­pin of its fu­ture im­munol­o­gy plans.

J&J and Pro­tag­o­nist Ther­a­peu­tics are in dis­cus­sions for a buy­out, the Wall Street Jour­nal re­port­ed Fri­day, cit­ing peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter. The ex­act pa­ra­me­ters of the deal were not dis­closed, and it’s not cer­tain that a deal will take place.

Pro­tag­o­nist’s stock PT­GX surged Fri­day morn­ing by more than 35%, ris­ing above $90 per share for the first time in the com­pa­ny’s his­to­ry. As of Thurs­day’s mar­ket close, Pro­tag­o­nist had a mar­ket cap of $4.06 bil­lion.

A spokesper­son for Pro­tag­o­nist told End­points News in an email that the com­pa­ny “doesn’t com­ment on spec­u­la­tion or ru­mor.” A J&J spokesper­son didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment.

The White House and As­traZeneca are ex­pect­ed to an­nounce a deal on drug pric­ing lat­er Fri­day, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter, as Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump strikes a sec­ond agree­ment un­der his "most fa­vored na­tion" push.

A White House of­fi­cial con­firmed to End­points News that there would be a drug price an­nounce­ment around 5 p.m. ET Fri­day, but de­clined to say which com­pa­ny or com­pa­nies would be there, if any. Ru­mors of As­traZeneca's deal were cours­ing through Wash­ing­ton Fri­day, as the in­dus­try spec­u­lat­ed about who would an­nounce next.

An As­traZeneca spokesper­son de­clined to com­ment. On Thurs­day, the com­pa­ny's CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot and Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Glenn Youngkin broke ground on a $4.5 bil­lion in­vest­ment on a new man­u­fac­tur­ing site. The com­pa­ny has pledged $50 bil­lion in new in­vest­ment in the US.

The head of the FDA of­fice that helps de­ter­mine or­phan drug des­ig­na­tions has been re­as­signed and is no longer in the role, an ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial con­firmed to End­points News.

San­dra Ret­zky, di­rec­tor of the Of­fice of Or­phan Prod­ucts De­vel­op­ment, is no longer in the role but she has not been fired, the source told End­points on Fri­day. It was­n't clear to where Ret­zky was re­as­signed, and she did­n't re­spond to mul­ti­ple at­tempts to reach her for com­ment.

The or­phan drug job sits with­in the of­fice of the FDA's chief med­ical of­fi&s