Vertex and CRISPR look beyond beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease. Also, Bicycle gets $50m up front in Novartis deal, Regeneron commits $75m initially under a Treg collaboration with Sonoma, and Jounce gets a better deal from Concentra to wave off Redx merger.

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.

As the usual flurry of deals coincides with the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, AbbVie signed an mRNA pact with Anima and a cancer research tie-up with Immunome.

Amgen has signed two big early-stage deals in a matter of days, signalling that antibody-drug conjugates are a priority target in oncology for the firm.