Private Company Edition: Venture capital invested in pharma and biotech in 2020 totaled $19.5m through Q3, just $400m below the full-year record total of $19.9bn in 2018. Also, Canaan and Catalio reveal new VC funds, while Talaris’s $115m series B leads recent financings.

Merck Research Laboratories president Roger Perlmutter returned to the company when its R&D was at a crossroads. Now he is retiring and handing the company’s post-Keytruda growth over to SVP Dean Li.  

Senior executives from Bayer outlined at a recent summit the contours of digital transformation already underway and the vital components of a successful digital team. Firms need to be able to operate technology at the “speed of business” and not “at the speed of a ticketing queue.”

While Accord HealthCare has convinced the European Medicines Agency that its rivaroxaban generic should be approved in the EU, Bayer has warned that patent protection for Xarelto continues until at least late 2023. The EMA this week also recommend approval for a number of other new drugs.