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.

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 biopharmaceutical companies that have received venture funding. This month’s column covers deals announced in January and February 2017.