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.

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 January and February 2019.

Finance Watch has noted $1.1bn worth of venture capital deals so far in 2019. Meanwhile, public offerings continue to be muted by the US government shutdown, though Revance and others sold shares. Also, Five Prime and others reveal layoffs and strategic shifts.

Third-quarter biopharma financing, which totaled $12.5 billion, was dominated by follow-on public offerings, which represented virtually half the value. Acquisition activity was headlined by a major move by Gilead in the CART market. Five alliances were signed worth over $1 billion, led by a partnership between two key players, Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca.