Unlike the migraine space, there is only one competitor for Teva's CGRP inhibitor in cluster headaches, but that opportunity narrowed with fremanezumab's failure in chronic cluster headaches, though a trial in episodic cluster headaches is ongoing.

Public Company Edition: Madrigal and Galmed shares more than doubled after reporting what were viewed as positive results in mid-stage NASH studies, with Madrigal going on to raise $300m on the back of the data. Not all is well for publicly traded firms, however, as Advaxis and Flex Pharma reveal layoffs.

The failure of BACE inhibitor lanabecestat was the latest setback in Lilly's Alzheimer's pipeline, but the company has been working in this area with almost no success for decades, yet still feels a commitment to keep trying, Lilly Research Labs President Daniel Skovronsky tells Scrip.

Venture Capital Edition: Pfizer deprioritized neuroscience as an early R&D focus earlier this year, but will stay involved by spending 25% of the $600m added to its venture fund on neurology investments. Also, China VC investment keeps up fast pace and Alta Partners closes a new $130m health care fund.

Oral CGRP inhibitor atogepant delivers strong Phase IIb/III results in episodic migraine prevention less than a week after activist investors went public with their push for a management shakeup to reverse Allergan's falling stock price.

MeiraGTx was the first to go public in the US in June after six drug developer IPOs launched in May. With returns for this year's first-time biopharma offerings more than doubling from 9% at the end of April to 23.6% as of June 8, four new companies have filed and six have set terms for future IPOs.