Moderna is speculated to be in talks with Indian firms, including Wockhardt and a Tata group company, for manufacturing and/or marketing its COVID-19 vaccine. A deal in India could help the company meet its obligation to supply COVAX but Moderna is likely to choose its partner carefully.

New appointments have been announced this week by Basilea, BenevolentAI, OMEICOS Therapeutics, Pharnext, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Sonde Health, Takeda UK, Bone Therapeutics and Glythera.

Eurofins Scientific has snapped up the contract research business of Advinus Therapeutics, continuing its ongoing acquisition momentum. The deal also ends long-running speculation around a potential sale of Advinus, amid its rocky recent run.

Medtech companies brought in $2.3 billion in financing in Q1 2017, a slight decrease from Q4 2016; device M&A deals totaled $5.8 billion, a sharp decline from the prior quarter, but there were some billion-dollar deals. Q1 diagnostics financings – totaling $1.2 billion (thanks to a $900 million Series B round by cancer diagnostics company Grail) – showed a significant increase over the preceding quarter, as did the Q1 M&As at $700 million versus the previous $87 million.