Private Company Edition: Venture capital investment has moved into a slower summer pace, or maybe just shifted to small- and medium-sized biopharma financings. In addition to Third Arc’s $165m series A round, Brenig raised a $65m series A and Confo’s series B totaled €60m ($65m).

Private Company Edition: Publicly held Ascendis outsourced its preclinical AMD program to private Eyconis. Also, Innovation Endeavors revealed a new $630m VC fund and Mirae raised $50m for its first life science fund, while Accent, Comanche and Tr1X each brought in $75m rounds.

Neuroscience and oncology fuel high hopes for therapeutic R&D progress among 90-plus surveyed biopharma industry leaders.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove huge shifts in clinical trial practice and the transformation is expected to continue even after the global health emergency abates. Industry leaders sharing their predictions around clinical development homed in on decentralized trials, digitization and data tools as key topics for 2022.