The gray seals slide out of their cages into the Baltic Sea near the Lithuanian coast, swimming off to new lives imperiled by climate change, pollution and shrinking fish stocks.

The seal population has increased from about 4,000, considered nearly extinct, in the late 1980s to about 50,000.

Two years after quietly forming cancer start-up Nuvation Bio, ex-Axovant and Medivation CEO David Hung has agreed a big merger that will take it public – and provide more than $850 million in ...