Public Company Edition: Merging with a special purpose acquisition corporation may be an attractive alternative to an initial public offering, but February’s vigorous IPO pace includes seven recent offerings that raised $480.8m in the US. Also, Cassava raised $200m and KalVista brought in $222.5m.

Merck will spinout its mature franchises, including women's health products, into a new company that will have about $6bn-$6.5bn in 2021 revenues and be poised for modest growth.

Scrip looks at some the key clinical and regulatory pharma events that will spark attention during the next three months, according to Biomedtracker's latest quarterly outlook report.

A number of pivotal studies are expected to report top-line data in the third quarter. Here, with the help of Informa Pharma's Biomedtracker, we take a look at eight of those likely to be major catalysts for their sponsors.