Just over a month after raising $97m in a series B round, Oxford University spinout MiroBio and its immune checkpoint agonists have been snapped up by Gilead Sciences. 

Private Company Edition: The amount of venture capital raised by biopharma firms fell but individual companies grabbed a lot of cash, making for a remarkable Q2 relative to pre-pandemic times. Recent Q3 rounds includes Frontera’s $160m series B. Also, Oxford Science Enterprises added €250m to its fund.

ARCH closed a $3bn VC fund to end the month of June while in the same week six public biopharma firms said they are cutting jobs. Even so, some publicly traded companies have been able to launch sizeable offerings, including a $450m note sale by Cytokinetics and Xenon’s $250m follow-on. 

The Oxford university spin-out MiroBio has a senior leadership team in place, and aims to have its first checkpoint agonists in the clinic in 2022. Scrip spoke to its CEO about its plans.