Despite warnings of a slowdown in the IPO market for life sciences firms, the past two weeks saw another wave of S-1 filings by biopharmaceutical companies. Scynexis adjusted goals for its planned IPO, while Corium completed its offering; meanwhile, Endocyte landed a huge FOPO and scPharmaceuticals got off the ground with a $16 million Series A round.

Recent executive-level hires and director appointments at venture capital firms and biopharma and medtech start-ups.

Of the $6.3 billion total raised, 32% was from China distributor Shanghai Pharmaceuticals' $1.99 billion IPO - not only Q2's biggest financing, but also the second-largest pharma IPO of all time. Six of the 26 completed mergers were done to gain access to emerging markets, most notably, Takeda's $13.7 billion buy of Nycomed, almost half of the total $27.9 billion spent on pharma acquisitions this quarter. Q2's largest alliance was Vertex's in-licensing of Alios BioPharma's preclinical HCV nucleotide analogues, a deal that could be worth up to $775 million in up fronts and development milestones.

Start-Up's monthly comprehensive review of emerging life science companies that have received venture funding during the month, including companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic and research instrumentation and reagent sectors.