Private Company Edition: In addition to Erasca’s big series B round, Mabwell reportedly brought in $278m. Also, Kurma, Venrock and Section bring the number of new VC funds in April to eight, raising $5.89bn, and former AveXis execs launched the new gene therapy venture Taysha.

Novel therapeutic strategies for Parkinson’s disease have brought a renewed sense of optimism to those researching this neurodegenerative disorder. Numerous treatment avenues are being explored, including small molecules, gene therapy, cell therapy and medical devices to stimulate nerves deep in the brain. Digital also gets a look-in, being useful for analyzing gait and other symptoms, and addressing both mental and physical issues.

The amount of venture capital that Denali Therapeutics Inc. has raised and the number of collaborations it's negotiated in less than two years is pretty staggering for a startup biopharmaceutical company, not to mention a startup focused on the central nervous system and neurodegeneration.

TwoXAR Inc. wants to help the biopharma industry make good use of big data. The start-up hopes to change the way drug discovery works, with software that can analyze broad arrays of data – chemical compound libraries, gene expression data, protein interaction networks, protein binding databases, patient records and just about anything else related to drug development – and propose a "short list" of drug candidates with a high probability of making it to the clinic.