There hasn’t been a headline-stealing deal at J.P. Morgan yet. Nevertheless, the mood is positive amid green shoots and a flurry of dealmaking to end 2025.
This time around, the optimism for the future of the biopharma industry is not just projected. That’s what BioSpace is hearing across the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference this week.
In interview after interview, executives and industry watchers say the sunny skies of San Francisco for once truly represent the mood in the industry.
“It’s so much more upbeat,” said Heather Turner, CEO of LB Pharma, which pulled off a highly successful IPO last year despite a rocky environment for public debuts.
Investors and executives are pleased with the IPOs that have happened—including the surprise debut of Eikon Therapeutics—and the flurry of capital raises that occurred the week before the conference, according to Maha Radhakrishnan, a partner at Sofinnova Investments.
“It feels like the doors have opened. It feels like investors are ready to invest in good assets,” Radhakrishnan told BioSpace on Monday.
One thing that hasn’t happened yet is the big, headline-stealing deal that conference attendees come to expect heading into this annual gathering. Last year it was Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion acquisition of Intra-Cellular. Veterans of the conference will remember 2019, when Bristol Myers Squibb acquired Celgene for $74 billion.
“Can I say, it’s not going to be us. I’ll just take that off the table,” quipped Jane Grogan, Biogen’s head of research, in an interview with BioSpace on Monday. But she too is waiting to see what her Big Pharma peers will do. She thinks the Big One could still drop this week.
While she waits, Grogan said she’s excited to see the buzz about biotech startups again and emerging innovation in China.
Novartis made a small but encouraging licensing deal on Monday, offering up to $1.5 billion to work with China’s SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals on an Alzheimer’s disease drug. The deal reflected the excitement that many companies feel as the neurodegenerative disease rises once more as a key area of investment. Radhakrishnan, who previously served at Biogen during the clinical development of Aduhelm and Leqembi, noted the positive momentum in the space.
Radhakrishnan isn’t worried about the current lack of a big M&A deal. Good deals don’t have to be tied to J.P. Morgan—as evidenced by the excitement around Metsera late last year, she said.
“People say, but we didn’t see anything this morning. I’m like, ‘Guys, why are you focusing just on the Monday morning? It could happen anytime.”
