Welcome to Inflection to Insight, a new series taking a closer look at notable chapters in biopharma history, gleaning learnings to inform current business strategy. This inaugural instalment looks at the rapid rise and fall of two competing drugs for hepatitis C virus, Vertex’s Incivek and Merck & Co’s Victrelis.

Private Company Edition: Two companies raised multiple hundreds of millions of dollars each helping to keep the number of $100m-plus venture capital mega-rounds on the rise in May. Also, Ascend raised $132.5m to make gene and cell therapies, and Nido emerged with $109m for neurological diseases.

CMS proposed rule impact may be ‘modest’ but is framed as ensuring patient access to cutting edge treatments by helping to control Medicaid spending. Biden administration initiative also aims to address misclassification of brand drugs, duplicative 340B discounts, and PBM spread pricing.

In the private market, eight Chinese biotechs raised a combined $116m in deals backed by venture capital and private equity firms over the past few weeks.