Sepranolone may have progressed positively through a Phase IIa trial but its potential to reduce tics has failed to tempt any of the 20 or so potential partners that the Swedish biotech spoke to about a licensing deal.

During Q4, biopharmas brought in an aggregate $17.5bn in financing and device company fundraising totaled $1.9bn; while in vitro diagnostic firms and research tools players raised $848m.

The pipeline to treat the neurological disorder, which is characterized by uncontrolled rapid and repeated movements or sounds, is very thin but a couple of biotechs either side of the Atlantic are making progress.

Private Company Edition: The Paragon Biosciences-founded Emalex previously raised $35m when ecopipam was in Phase II. Also, Catalio Capital launches a “special situations” fund, Zenas raises $118m to develop a pipeline of autoimmune disease treatments and Lusaris emerges with $60m.