Takeda struck an unusual deal with Ovid Therapeutics in early 2017: instead of a Big Pharma snapping up a promising asset from a small biotech, it was Ovid that would help Takeda develop a drug for a group of rare epilepsies. Now that Ovid has taken the program through phase 2, Takeda is taking back its global rights—to the tune of $196 million.

Shortly after TransEnterix changed its name to Asensus Surgical late last month—calling the rebranding a signal of its plans to bring artificial intelligence to the operating table—the company has secured a new, expansive FDA clearance for its robotic system in general surgery.

The FDA cleared its first surgical robot designed for transvaginal hysterectomies, a minimally invasive option that aims for a faster recovery time compared to procedures that require a larger abdominal incision.

The robots are coming: After working under the radar for four years, Bionaut Labs is raising the curtain on its tiny, remote-controlled devices, built to travel through the human body and deliver a dose of medicine where it’s needed the most.

Bispecific antibodies—engineered drugs that can bind to two different tumor antigens—inhibit cancer growth by hitting multiple targets at the same time. Now three Johns Hopkins research groups are describing promising early evidence that designing bispecifics so they simultaneously bind to tumor antigens and T cells could offer a viable approach to creating off-the-shelf immuno-oncology drug treatments.

After seeing diagnostics revenues increase by 450% last quarter to meet global COVID-19 demands, Hologic continues to reinvest the proceeds into its testing divisions, now with its third multimillion-dollar acquisition of the year so far.

The FDA has accepted a filing for approval of Merck’s P2X3 receptor antagonist gefapixant for review. Merck is seeking approval on the basis of phase 3 trials that linked the oral drug to improvements in several measures of chronic cough symptoms but confirmed tolerability concerns.

Germany’s Merck, looking to beef up its cancer pipeline and move beyond its checkpoint inhibitor Bavencio in the future, has signed up to in-license a late-stage oncology assert from Swiss biotech Debiopharm.

Rebus Biosystems has launched what it describes as its new “spatial omics” system, designed to give researchers a closer look at the output of individual cells across tissue samples.