The Most Important Pharma Event in America Kicks Off Today With High Hopes for M&A
Some 8,000 industry movers and shakers are expected today for the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, or simply JPM.

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It’s like Coachella for the healthcare business. Some 8,000 industry movers and shakers are expected today for the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, or simply JPM as it’s known to regulars.
The four-day, invite-only palaver kicks off its 43rd edition in downtown San Francisco, and one word is hanging over this year’s gathering: deals.
Networking for a Spark
JPM is a key showcase for healthcare firms big and small to show off clinical milestones and new projects to peers and industry-expert investors. Pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer will be on hand, as will artificial intelligence giant Nvidia.
Last year, Nvidia held a fireside chat with clinical stage Utah biotech Recursion, which it backs, and the $3 trillion tech giant is returning this year to participate in another fireside. Behind the presentations, meanwhile, is perhaps the more important aspect of the event: the confab. Thousands turn up for the networking alone, with official attendees often rushing from one room to another to hold meetings with other companies, analysts, government officials, and others who are rarely, if ever, in the same place at the same time. This year, the hope is that attendees might lay the groundwork for thawing an icy period in dealmaking:
- More than 150 drugs worth $200 billion in annual sales — including Keytruda, Eliquis and Opdivo — have patent expirations from last year to 2030, according to healthcare consulting firm ZS. That’s a generational-level patent cliff on par with 2011, when the industry faced losing $250 billion in drug revenue, and means larger firms will be on the hunt for promising new ways to bridge the coming gap.
- More than three quarters of life sciences and healthcare executives told Deloitte in a survey they expect M&A to increase in 2025 thanks to the patent cliff. That’s clearing a very low bar, however: Health-care sector deals have fallen to a decade-low total value, according to Bloomberg data, and it’s been more than a year since there was a biotech acquisition worth over $5 billion.
Pierre Jacquet, the managing director of LEK Consulting’s health-care practice, told Bloomberg several big pharma firms are nevertheless being cautious because “drugs that were acquired or licensed haven’t performed as expected.” He also noted fewer attractive M&A targets now than there were from 2017 to 2021.
Reasons for Optimism: Bryan Spieman, the chief growth officer at biopharma research consulting firm Advarra, noted last week that more than 50 firms announced private equity financing rounds of $100 million or more in 2024, and that follow-on issuance activity in the biotech sector rose 64% during the year, according to UBS. The strong private financing, he noted, comes as the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump is likely to be more open to M&A “than the Biden administration has been, with its aggressive stance ultimately pausing or blocking proposed deals.”