Private Company Edition: Three consecutive $100m-plus venture capital rounds include Obsidian’s series C, a $132m series B round for Alterome and Diagonal’s $128m launch. Also, The Medicines Company’s Clive Meanwell reportedly is heading up a well-founded obesity start-up.

More than 100 biopharma executives and experts told Scrip their predictions for therapeutic area advances in the coming year. The recent commercial success of GLP-1s in diabetes and obesity and their potential in further disease areas fuelled excitement around the metabolic space. Expectations were also positive in neurology following the launch of Leqembi for Alzheimer’s disease in 2023, while the multiple opportunities to improve cancer treatment kept oncology top of the pile overall.

Plus deals involving Lipocine/Verity, Vivtex/AI Proteins, Windtree/Lee’s Pharmaceutical, Biogen/Ji Xing, Sermonix/Henlius and news from the world of technology transfer.

CTMC CEO Jason Bock talked to Scrip about the venture between MD Anderson and National Resilience, which provides manufacturing, process development and regulatory support for small cell therapy developers’ preclinical and clinical proof-of-concept studies. Meanwhile, Verge Genomics initiated a Phase Ib study of its AI-discovered drug for ALS; EyePoint and Aviceda dosed patients in their Phase II DME trials; Parexel teamed up with a non-profit cancer research group in Japan; and BARDA selected PPD to run its Phase II platform trial for ARDS.