Private Company Edition: As venture capital funding continues at a robust pace relative to public company financings, Knopp Biosciences and Population Health Partners launched Areteia with enough cash to fund Phase III asthma trials and Qiming revealed new VC funds totaling $2.5bn and $700m.

The company will shift development of INO-4800 to a booster strategy. It also announced it must conduct additional studies of the cervical dysplasia drug VGX-3100 after an FDA meeting.

Beijing expands mass testing to more areas and Shanghai’s case fatally rate raises questions amid China deals with the worst outbreak in two years.

While two Chinese companies gained domestic approvals for their recombinant protein and adenovirus-based COVID-19 shots as heterologous boosters in February, these currently only account for roughly 21% of all booster shots, showing the continued predominance of inactivated virus-based technology in the country.