The start-up is aiming to develop a NaV1.8 inhibitor for pain, but previous efforts here have met with more failure than success.

Private Company Edition: Two companies raised multiple hundreds of millions of dollars each helping to keep the number of $100m-plus venture capital mega-rounds on the rise in May. Also, Ascend raised $132.5m to make gene and cell therapies, and Nido emerged with $109m for neurological diseases.

The firms’ partnership goes back to pre-merger Celgene, and BMS still has Dragonfly candidates in its pipeline. Ji Xing gets hypertension candidate from Phase Bio.

Mersana will help J&J develop antibody-drug conjugates against three targets, while AstraZeneca out-licenses a candidate for peripheral artery disease to Regio.