In this installment of VC Playbook, profiling venture capital strategies in biopharma and medtech, In Vivo talks to Sofinnova Partners' Graziano Seghezzi about market access trends, Italy’s growing biotech offering and the perils of “health nationalism” to business partnering in the aftermath of COVID-19.

Novo Nordisk’s 6 August Q2 update will be scrutinized for clues on its plans for semaglutide in obesity, sales data for diabetes drugs Rybelsus and Ozempic, and likely M&A.

Novo Nordisk is paying $725m to acquire the VC-backed US biotech, Corvidia Therapeutics and its promising Phase II candidate, ziltivekimab, for chronic kidney disease, but further payments could total more than $2bn.

April had four VC rounds of $100m or more, including Allogene's $300m to develop CAR-T therapies licensed from Pfizer. Innovent Biologics raised $150m, BenevolentAI brought in $115m and Constellation garnered $100m last month.