Plus deals involving GC Cell/Rivaara Immune, Sperogenix/Santhera, EOFlow/Zihipp, Grand/ITM, Tasly/Sutro, LegoChem/Iksuda, Nuance/Aerogen, Frontier/AffiRiS and Piramal/Yapan.

The week's round-up includes new CFOs at Shire and BTG and Neurocrine Biosciences, a new CEO at Gamida Cell, a new general counsel at Scynexis, and a new head for Bayer's consumer health division.

Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Venture Funding Deals column provides a comprehensive monthly review of emerging life science companies that have received venture funding, including companies within the In Vitro Diagnostics, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceuticals sectors. This month’s column covers deals announced January through February 2015.

Many pharmaceutical companies already take and keep blood samples from patients in clinical trials, knowing that the DNA therein could expose a genetic basis for side effects. As clinical trials continue growing larger at FDA's request, drugmakers will confront the expanding challenge and cost of storing lots of samples. GenVault aims to convince pharma companies and medical centers that its new automated DNA storage system offers big advantages over freezers conventionally used to store blood.