Vanderbilt launches new biotech with Deerfield aimed at reworking the drug development paradigm, while also expanding its cancer research work with BI. Grunenthal partners with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven to investigate ion channel modulation approaches in pain.

Trek Therapeutics, a three-year old biotech founded by a group of virology veterans, is testing the conventional wisdom in seeking to carve out a potential $17 billion business in the hotly contested hepatitis C space.

A review of biopharma start-up dealmaking and financing from October through December 2016, based on data from Strategic Transactions.

Deals for technology platforms allow more of a multiple-shots-on-goal approach as opposed to taking a risk with one or two candidates.