Private Company Edition: Biomedtracker found that 53% of financings during the first quarter were venture capital deals versus 32% in Q1 of last year. Also, Qiming closed a $260m fund, Transition Bio raised a $50m series A round, ProfoundBio completed a $70m series A+ and MycoMedica raised $60m.

Chordia only came into being in late 2017 but has already struck its first major licensing-out deal with a major pharma firm. It is now looking ahead to taking forward a portfolio of novel oncology assets originally acquired from investor Takeda.

Plus deals involving SELLAS/3D Medicines, Kyowa Kirin/InveniAI, JW/Voronoi, Y-mAbs/Takeda, Horizon Discovery/Sanyou, Sentinel Oncology/PharmaEngine

GNC had faced a springing maturity date of 16 May for payments to reduce its debt of more than $865m in convertible notes and other debts from credit facilities to less than $50m.