The 38th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference – What to Expect?

By Rajaneesh K. Gopinath, Ph.D.

For the next few days starting Monday, all the attention of healthcare industry members will be centered around the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference has become an annual pilgrimage for industry leaders, venture capitalists, innovators, and trendsetters from emerging companies where they announce plans, build partnerships, analyze past performances or drop the news of their next major merger or acquisition.

It is hard to imagine that a meeting which began with a modest count of a few hundred attendees in 1983 is entering its 38th year as one of the biggest healthcare investment symposiums in the world bringing over 9000 global attendees and over a thousand investors encompassing biotech, pharma and MedTech industries. If you thought the criticism of exorbitant rates would take the sheen of this invite-only event comprising of elite top brass, then you are mistaken.

A meeting of this proportion could be rather overwhelming for attendees especially when they have to focus on raising their networking game. So, here are a few pointers with respect to the topics that are expected to dominate the event and the talks to look forward to.

Drug Pricing

Lat September, the U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi released the Democrat’s plan to lower the price of prescription drugs. If implemented, this law would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to negotiate the prices of 50-250 prescription drugs, thereby saving the government $456 billion according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Although the bill is well-intentioned, private investors warned that this could hamper new drug innovations and affect the funding of smaller biotech companies. They explained that since the pharmaceutical industry is built on revenue, such actions will only result in companies increasing their prices of new drugs to break even.

Last month, the house of representatives passed the legislation but the odds of it becoming law is still very low. Nevertheless, the first week of 2020 has witnessed the continuing trend of drug price hikes. A number of pharma giants including Merck, Gilead, Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis, GSK, Pfizer, Teva, and Allergan have announced plans to increase the costs of over 400 drugs this year. With 2020 being the US presidential election year, a lot of focus will be on the drug pricing reforms and expectations from lawmakers. Don’t miss the panel discussion on the topic “How Pharma is Working to Advance Drug Pricing Reforms in an Election Year” on Tuesday (Jan 14) at 5.00 p.m. PT.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Strategy for Celgene Assets

The news of BMS’s acquisition of Celgene dominated the JPM conference last year and rightly so. The acquisition was the largest pharmaceutical transaction ever and investors would be eager to know future plans with regards to regulatory filings for ozanimod, liso-cel and bb2121, the three newly acquired assets of Celgene. Giovanni Caforio, Chairman and CEO of BMS will deliver the first talk of the conference on Monday (Jan 13) at 7:30 a.m. pacific time (PT) and it is expected to be a full house.

Gilead’s Future Plans

J.P. Morgan’s own research team has suggested Gilead’s presentation to not be missed. The newly appointed CEO Daniel O’Day rung out several administrative and strategic changes last year, the recent one being the promotion of Andrew Dickinson as CFO. Gilead is expected to make many M&A deals in 2020 and investors should watch out for any surprise announcement. Daniel O’ will present on Monday (Jan 13) at 9:30 a.m. PT.

Biogen’s Aducanumab

Biogen’s decision in 2019 to discontinue clinical trials of aducanumab only to make a U-turn later in the year to file for its regulatory approval has improved its stocks and renewed the interest of investors in the drug. If greenlighted by the FDA, it would be one of the biggest approvals in history. Although some sources opine that the trial data of aducanumab is still far from warranting a nod from the FDA, it would be interesting to get the company’s take on that. Biogen’s presentation is scheduled for Monday (Jan 13) at 3:30 p.m. PT.

Alnylam’s Plans for RNA Therapeutics

Alnylam had a memorable 2019 by getting its second RNAi based drug, Givlaari, FDA approved. It is also the first (ESC)-GalNAc siRNA drug to be approved. With other drugs such as Fitusiran, Lumasiran, and Vutrisiran in late-stage trials, one could expect an update on them. The presentation will also include an update on unaudited fourth quarter and full-year 2019 global net product revenues. John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., will present on Monday (Jan 13) at 10:30 a.m. PT.

Keynote Speeches

• Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co. will be interviewed by Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network on Monday (Jan 13) at 12:30 p.m. PT.
• Seema Verma, Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will present on Wednesday (Jan 15) at 12:15 p.m. PT.

Other Talks with Potential M&A Announcements

• Vasant (Vas) Narasimhan, M.D., CEO, Novartis, Monday (Jan 13) at 8:00 a.m. PT.
• Herve Hoppenot, Chairman, President & CEO, Incyte, Monday (Jan 13) at 8:30 a.m. PT.
• Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board & CEO, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany (Healthcare), Monday (Jan 13) at 9:00 a.m. PT.
• Doug Ingram, President, and CEO, Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc., Monday (Jan 13) at 9:30 a.m. PT.
• Patrick J. Mahaffy, CEO, Clovis Oncology, Monday (Jan 13) at 10:00 a.m. PT.
• Kenneth Frazier, Chairman, and CEO, and Roger Perlmutter President, Merck & Co., Inc., Monday (Jan 13) at 4:30 p.m. PT.
• Stephane Bancel, CEO, Moderna, Monday (Jan 13) at 4:30 p.m. PT.
• Emma Walmsley, CEO, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Tuesday (Jan 14) at 7.30 a.m. PT.
• Robert A. Bradway, Chairman, and CEO, Amgen Inc., Tuesday (Jan 14) at 8.30 a.m. PT.
• Bill Anderson, CEO Roche Pharmaceuticals, Roche, Tuesday (Jan 14) at 9.30 a.m. PT.
• Paul Hudson, CEO, Sanofi, Tuesday (Jan 14) at 10.30 a.m. PT.
• David Ricks, Chairman, and CEO, Eli Lilly and Co., Tuesday (Jan 14) at 2.30 p.m. PT.
• Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc., Tuesday (Jan 14) at 3.30 p.m. PT.
• Christophe Weber, President & CEO, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Tuesday (Jan 14) at 4.00 p.m. PT.
• Richard Gonzalez, Chairman of the Board, CEO, AbbVie, Wednesday (Jan 15) at 7:30 a.m. PT.
• Brett Monia, CEO, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Wednesday (Jan 15) at 7:30 a.m. PT.
• Cynthia Collins, CEO, Editas Medicine Inc., Wednesday (Jan 15) at 10:30 a.m. PT.
• Junling Liu, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, 111, Inc. will present on Wednesday (Jan 15) at 4:00 p.m. PT on the topic “Capturing Opportunities in China’s Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry in an Era of Transformation”.
• Sandy Macrae, CEO, Sangamo Therapeutics, Thursday (Jan 16) at 8:30 a.m. PT.

Author

Rajaneesh K. Gopinath