The first day of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is in the books, featuring high-profile deal announcements from Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, GSK and several other biopharma players.
Besides deal announcements, many companies took an opportunity to provide preliminary overviews of their financial performance for last year.
For Fierce Pharma's day 1 news roundup, click here. Fierce Biotech's day 1 coverage can be found here.
Below, check out the latest coverage from day 2, including a wrap-up of the scene outside of the Westin St. Francis as the conference came to a conclusion on Monday. Today, we're tracking presentations from GSK, Novartis, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and other companies.
4:45 p.m. ET
As Bayer braces for the loss of Xarelto's exclusivity, the company is turning to new launches to weather the turbulence, Stefan Oelrich, head of Bayer’s pharma division, said Tuesday.
Bayer is currently preparing for the launch of newly in-licensed transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) therapy acoramidis after receiving a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency. Oelrich said acoramidis’ early launch performance by BridgeBio in the U.S.—as well as Bayer’s existing infrastructure in the cardiovascular space—make the company “feel extremely strong” about the EU rollout.
The other upcoming launch is the menopause candidate elinzanetant, which is under FDA review. If approved, the drug would go up against Veozah, for which Astellas last year slashed its peak sales projection in half to between 150 billion yen ($1 billion) and 250 billion yen ($1.6 billion).
“We see this as a blockbuster candidate,” Oelrich said of elinzanetant. “And quite frankly, otherwise we shouldn't be launching.”
“But I think I mentioned it last year already, this is not a walk in the park, because there is a clear understanding by physicians that [hormone replacement therapy] is an effective treatment,” Oelrich continued. “So we need to find the right place where this is acceptable, both to women, [who] I think are more open to nonhormonals, but also to physicians.”
1:50 p.m. ET
In the wake of the FDA's approval for Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s disease treatment last year, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher said his company is ready for the competition.
Speaking Tuesday with J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott, Viehbacher said Biogen is "mindful of the financial power of Lilly" and "certainly wouldn’t want to underestimate a competitor."
As it stands, Eli Lilly’s Kisunla is capturing about 30% of new Alzheimer’s patients following its July 2024 FDA approval, according to Viehbacher.
Two years ago, Biogen and partner Eisai secured accelerated FDA approval for their Alzheimer’s med Leqembi, followed by a full approval in 2023. Since then, the companies have been gradually growing Leqembi sales as they work to ease the diagnostic and treatment journey for the devasting disease. These efforts include a push to introduce a subcutaneous autoinjector for Leqembi and support for blood-based biomarker testing.
Between now and the end of the decade, Viehbacher believes Leqembi and Kisunla will dominate the Alzheimer’s treatment field. While he acknowledged that Biogen isn’t as “big and powerful” as Eli Lilly, the Biogen CEO said his company will be able to “stand our ground” in the competition.
12:40 p.m. ET
Novartis is zoning in on its breast cancer drug Kisqali as its most significant growth driver, with “the opportunity to be one of the biggest drugs in our history,” CEO Vas Narasimhan said during the company’s presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. The therapy could pull more than $8 billion in peak sales, assuming a “reasonable uptake,” Narasimhan explained. As it stands, Kisqali has around a 50% U.S market share in the metastatic breast cancer space and 52% in early breast cancer.
“All the signs are that we’re going in the right direction,” Narasimhan said, referring to Kisqali.
Kisqali is one of eight marked products that Novartis has sales potential in the $3 billion to $8 billion range, along with Entresto and Cosentyx, plus more recent launches Scemblix, Fabhalta and others.
11:50 a.m. ET
The anti-vaccine movement in the United States has gained momentum with President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
So how does Emma Walmsley, the CEO of England's GSK, which is one of the world’s top vaccine companies, feel about the movement?
“Let’s wait and see,” Walmsley said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. “There is categorically no better return on healthcare budgets and no better intervention in public health—and stopping disease before it starts—than keeping people out of the hospital. And any debate or questions around the efficacy of vaccination, the quality of vaccination, is one we completely welcome. We need to run toward these conversations with transparency and trust.”
Walmsley reminded the audience that the stakes are huge for GSK in the U.S.
“It’s an exciting time for GSK in this country. Make no mistake, it’s the No. 1 priority for us. It’s more than 50% of the business,” Walmsley said. “We’ve just invested another $800 million in Pennsylvania in manufacturing for medicines and vaccines. We’ve got 15,000 people here. The majority of our business development business is still here in some the most exciting cities for innovation. So we’re all in on the U.S.”
Much of GSK’s presentation centered on the five products it hopes to launch in 2025, most importantly, its antibody-drug conjugate treatment Blenrep, which made noise in November, topping Johnson & Johnson’s Darzalex in overall survival in a multiple myeloma trial.
10:10 a.m. ET
As the first day of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference 2025 drew to an end, attendees leaving the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco were met with protesters who accused the industry of putting profits above people’s lives.
The annual conference opened Monday with a notably increased police presence compared with prior year events as the healthcare industry reels from the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City.
At about 5 p.m. local time, as Monday’s confab finished its second to last presentations, some 20 protesters were seen at the scene on both sides of Powell Street, while about a dozen police officers were present, some wearing bulletproof vests. Conference goers were largely unfazed by the episode.