Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Private Company Edition: Celgene's former top deal-maker George Golumbeski is now a life science business consultant and venture partner at ARCH. Also, a VC investment surge portends another big year for biopharma, including $85m for Ansun and $66m for FogPharma.

The Cambridge-based company's CEO Will West tells Scrip that CCS1477 has shown a lot of potential for patients with late-stage prostate cancer who are resistant to second-line anti-androgen drugs like Zytiga and Xtandi and the $26m it has just raised will help fund development of the epigenetic therapy up to Phase IIb.

With the acquisition of Nycomed, Takeda’s long-standing strategy for becoming a world-class pharma has come into focus. The company spent much of the past decade building up its pipeline, globalizing R&D and importing Western staff, assets, platforms and processes. It also began a hectic period of M&A unparalleled among Japanese companies, culminating in 2011 with its acquisition of Nycomed. Now its focus will need to shift from big acquisitions and organizational makeover to execution.