Private Company Edition: Flagship’s Pioneering Medicines initiative and the firm’s portfolio companies will deliver cystic fibrosis drug candidates. Also, recent venture capital financings include cloud technology firm Saama’s $430m round and Shoreline’s $140m in new funding.

Imara has raised $63m to pursue its PDE9 inhibitor for sickle cell disease, and hopes to broaden the Phase II drug candidate into related blood disorders such as beta thalassemia.

Senior executives are to depart Gilead Sciences, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Amgen, while C-suite and board hires have been reported at Sirnaomics, Pandion, Purdue Pharma, Cardurion and OncoSec.

A review of biopharma start-up deal-making and financing activity from July through September 2017, based on data from Strategic Transactions, showed that fundraising declined 18% from the previous quarter, however the number of acquisitions doubled to eight.