Private Company Edition: Publicly held Ascendis outsourced its preclinical AMD program to private Eyconis. Also, Innovation Endeavors revealed a new $630m VC fund and Mirae raised $50m for its first life science fund, while Accent, Comanche and Tr1X each brought in $75m rounds.

Deal Snapshot: The deal, with an upfront payment of $45m, is the latest of several involving large biopharma companies and smaller firms focused on small molecule drugs based on RNA biology.

Janssen Biotech adds to its bispecific antibody pipeline for cancer via pair of collaborations. Ipsen and Accent pair up to investigate new target for acute myeloid leukemia.

Deal Snapshot: In addition to investigating the ADAR1 target with the UK biotech, Exelixis also has optioned a second candidate for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma under its 2019 deal with Aurigene.