The UK firm has got the green light in the US to conduct two Phase IIb/III trials of its cancer cachexia candidate S-pindolol but a lot more money needs to be raised to complete them.

Private Company Edition: Genesis raised $200m, Rapport brought in $150m and Cellares closed a $255m round. Also, Ferring got $300m up front in a royalty deal, Fore Biotherapeutics raised a $75m series D and Vaxxas won a $3.67m Wellcome grant to advance a next-generation typhoid vaccine.

Argenx partners with Elektrofi and Iontas; China’s Qilu obtains global rights to Peptron’s antibody-drug conjugate and also ends co-development pact with Quantum Genomics.

The new indication covers functional mitral regurgitation, also known as secondary mitral regurgitation, which represents two-to-three times as many patients as the primary mitral regurgitation population MitraClip is already labeled for. The approval is supported by results from the COAPT trial, the first randomized trial to show that a mitral-valve repair could improve outcomes in patients with secondary mitral regurgitation.