Inside The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Extravaganza |
In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at upcoming M&A activity, a ‘holy grail’ pill for sleep apnea, Pomelo Care’s expansion, Nvidia and Lilly’s $1 billion AI venture, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.
This week kicked off the healthcare industry’s yearly extravaganza: The 44th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, which is typically a hotbed of dealmaking activity.
This year, the M&A talk ahead of the San Francisco event was relatively muted. Lilly agreed last week to buy Ventyx, which is working on a drug to treat recurrent pericarditis, for $1.2 billion. But while there were no megadeal announcements, the potential for one lurked in the background. On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Merck was in talks to buy cancer drug developer Revolution Medicines for up to $32 billion. Shares are up 52% over the past month.
Whether a deal for RevMed ultimately happens, it seems likely that dealmaking will continue in 2026. Biopharma M&A activity reached $116 billion in 2025, more than double the $52 billion of 2024, according to a recent research report by J.P. Morgan based on data from DealForma.
Tailwinds abound for this year. As EY........