Private Company Edition: China-focused Nuance Pharma led recent venture capital deals with a $181m series D round, RayzeBio closed a $105m series B and SciNeuro launched with $100m plus other notable rounds from Edgewise, Reneo, BioAge and others.

Starts & Stops compiles all the clinical trial announcements, initiations, completions and suspensions tracked by MedDeviceTracker. This edition covers Feb. 25 through March 3. Rani Therapeutics announced the first-in-human experience with its novel drug-delivery capsule Feb. 28.

Robotic pill technology, which is already being used for diagnostic purposes, will likely be embraced for the oral delivery of biologic drugs as well. Biologic therapies currently require injections in most cases, but some are exploring specialized robotic pills as a pain-free approach that could increase convenience and compliance, and thus efficacy, of medicines. Several established companies and research centers are working on both diagnostic and biologic therapeutic applications of pill-based technologies.

Although noises are still being made in Japan concerning the benefits of Shire's merger with Takeda, the former is going about the business of getting marketing green lights with the latest being for its inherited bleeding disorder treatment Veyvondi in Europe.