The recent success of Vertex in acute pain merely highlights the agonizingly slow process elsewhere, particularly in chronic pain indications.

Private Company Edition: After just seven venture capital rounds of $100m or more in January and February, five have been announced already in March, including a $200m series A round for Cargo Therapeutics, Chroma Medicine’s $135m series B financing and $112m for Noema’s series B.

The pipeline to treat the neurological disorder, which is characterized by uncontrolled rapid and repeated movements or sounds, is very thin but a couple of biotechs either side of the Atlantic are making progress.