The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, as well as our own Fierce JPM Week, roll into Wednesday with plenty more events, interviews and panels still to come.
Our reporters and editors are on the ground in San Francisco and will keep you updated with all the latest.
Be sure to check back here regularly for JPM Day 3 updates. For a Day 2 recap, check our tracker from yesterday. And for the pharma side of the industry, check out Fierce Pharma's Day 2 tracker here.
Wednesday, 3:35 p.m. ET
With a White House drug pricing deal sorted late last year, Sanofi has skirted the threat of U.S. import tariffs on its medicines for the time being. Still, lingering uncertainties about U.S. vaccine policy—and a surprise FDA rejection last week—mean the French pharma still has a few more obstacles to overcome as it enters 2026.
Renewed scrutiny of immunizations in the U.S.—which has touched Sanofi’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) antibody Beyfortus specifically and childhood RSV vaccination more broadly—comes amid larger questions about the “risk-benefit” of vaccines, Sanofi R&D chief Houman Ashrafian, Ph.D., said at a J.P. Morgan press event Wednesday. Still, he feels the large dataset Sanofi has produced on Beyfortus should speak for itself.
Meanwhile, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson suggested that the chilling opinion of vaccines among U.S. policymakers hasn’t come as a total shock.
“I’ve had conversations with Kennedy, we just try to stick the facts,” Hudson said, referring to HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Not much we can do.” Story
Wednesday, 11:15 a.m. ET
China has been a big topic of discussion at this year’s conference, with leaders acknowledging the speed at which the nation is able to advance innovation as one of its key advantages. Yesterday, Fierce asked Novartis’ chief medical officer and development president Shreeram Aradhye, M.D., why he thinks the U.S. hasn’t been able to match China's pace.
“I don't think it’s a regulatory constraint,” the Novartis leader said, pivoting to consider fundamental differences in how the countries' overall systems are set up.
“I hate talking about only speed in the context of any life sciences innovation, because it's a different ecosystem,” he continued, referring to China’s healthcare system. “It’s not the same, right? Our health system is characterized essentially by multiple entities.”
“It’s a very different thing than what happens in the U.S.,” Aradhye continued, highlighting questions about who is able to sign up for clinical trials and who pays for different aspects of the process. “It’s more complicated,” he said of the U.S.
Wednesday, 10:55 a.m. ET
The Biotech CEO Sisterhood, which strives to empower women in the industry’s C-suites and drive equitable representation throughout the industry, met for its second annual group photo Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. An estimated 800 to 1,000 people dropped by the event, many clad in pink to represent women in leadership.
Since its formation back in 2022, the group has grown to about 350 CEO members, with associated subgroups focusing on other C-level roles, such as those in finance and R&D, also growing quickly, according to the organization.
Wednesday, 10:25 a.m. ET
While Novo Nordisk’s work in diabetes and obesity has offered R&D inroads to “adjacencies” like chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, the company will no longer try “to rush in” to new indications, CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar said during his company’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference presentation this week.
Instead, the company will focus on assets tackling diabetes and obesity as a “starting point” and then go from there, the CEO said.
The move, according to Doustdar, is about “taking the company back to the DNA we have.”
“[W]e are really good when we focus,” he added.
Hoping to assuage potential concerns about the slightly scaled-back R&D focus, Doustdar highlighted the significant unmet need that remains in diabetes and obesity. Globally, just 7% of the more than 550 million people living with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes are receiving a GLP-1 drug, and that figure goes down to roughly 2% when accounting for the more than 900 million people around the world with obesity, according to a presentation prepared by Novo for JPM. Story
For more coverage of Novo's R&D aspirations, check out Fierce's interview with Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange, M.D., Ph.D., from the first day of JPM here.
Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. ET
Gilead Sciences Chief Medical Officer Dietmar Berger, M.D., Ph.D., updated Fierce yesterday on the company's plans for tackling a wider range of viruses—including those that affect the respiratory system or those that could trigger a new pandemic.
Berger spoke to Fierce at an event on the sidelines of JPM, where the CMO also told journalists about the company's approach to oncology research. Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day also explained how the company is now approaching dealmaking from a “position of strength” as a more mature biopharma. Story