Drugmakers in the pain space have a difficult road to approval, even outside of opioids, but a fresh-faced startup that launched this summer felt confident that investors would like what it brought to the table. Turns out it was right.

Allay Therapeutics on Wednesday closed a $60 million Series C round the biotech plans to use to advance its lead local analgesic implant into a key Phase IIb study in patients post-knee replacement surgery.

Four months after a secretive Shanghai biotech pulled in $60 million for a Series B round, it’s returning to the fore with a little more cash.

Alebund Pharmaceuticals closed a $54.5 million round it’s describing as “Series B+,” the company announced Monday evening, aiming to further advance its kidney disease programs. Funds will go toward two clinical assets as well as the construction of a manufacturing site, Alebund said in a release.

The FDA’s recent approval of Biogen’s Aduhelm has provided a spark plug for neuroscience research across the biopharma spectrum with investors more likely than ever to jump on board. A Chicago biotech now has its own clutch of blue-chip backers to pursue drugs across a range of indications — and it all started from a close colleague’s own diagnosis and search for a cure.

OrbiMed startup Vanqua Bio closed an $85 million Series B led by Omega Funds to put its lead candidate targeting the GCase enzyme in the clinic, first in Gaucher disease and then for a rare form of Parkinson’s, the company said Tuesday.

Neuroscience is having a moment right now, and one VC firm straddling the line between biotech and medtech is looking to capitalize on the field’s rapid growth.

Lightstone Ventures has raised $375 million for its third venture fund with an eye on expanding its focus in CNS disease, the firm said Tuesday.

The newest raise brings Lightstone’s total to more than $850 million since the firm was founded back in 2012. So far, that treasure chest has led to investments in around 30 companies split across the biotech and medtech spaces. With its third and largest fund, Lightstone is expecting much the same as before — mostly investments in seed-stage to Series A companies with an eye on “breakthroughs” in patient care, general partner Jason Lettmann told Endpoints News.

A French cell therapy startup is getting two new offices in opposite parts of the world, and a new CEO to boot as it announces a new round of funding Monday.

Biotech TreeFrog Therapeutics, which is focused on stem cell therapy, closed a $75 million Series B, the company announced. The round brings the company’s total funding to $83 million, and allows them to open up offices in Boston and Kobe, Japan, as it advances its biomimetic C-Stem technology for clinical manufacturing. The US office will start with a staff of around 10 to 15 people, but if all goes well, that will change quickly.

The biotech IPO market awoke from its summer hibernation on Friday morning with a small ADHD drug developer seeking a modest raise, but late Friday night saw another company file its SEC paperwork, one that will likely shoot for the stars.

Exscientia, the UK-based AI outfit with bold claims about its platform, submitted its F-1 on Friday, penciling in an initial $100 million raise estimate. That figure will almost certainly end up much higher, as Exscientia has spent most of 2021 racking up huge fundraising sums thanks to a Series C extension headed by BlackRock, and an up to $525 million Series D that included a $300 million equity investment from SoftBank.