Biotech companies share industry plans at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

Industry

Published: 10 Jan. 2023, 12:29 Updated: 10 Jan. 2023, 16:23

Biotech companies share industry plans at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

Mike Gaito, global head of healthcare investment banking at J.P. Morgan, delivers opening remarks during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 9 in San Francisco. [PARK EUN-JEE]

SAN FRANCISCO — Thousands of biotech executives and investors from across the globe have flocked to San Francisco to attend the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and look for potential deals, following a tough 2022 that saw patent cliffs and a drought of mergers and acquisitions.

Despite high winds and heavy rains battering the Bay area, the specialists gathered at 7 a.m. on the first day of the healthcare conference on Jan. 9, packing The Westin St. Francis hotel.

Attendees of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference enter the venue on Jan. 9. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The conference, one of the largest in the biopharmaceutical industry, attracted more than 550 leading healthcare companies including dozens of Korean players, with an anticipated 8,000 attendees.

Mike Gaito, global head of healthcare investment banking at J.P. Morgan, opened the event by forecasting that this year will see more M&A activities and deals compared to last year.

“It's a challenging 2022,” Gaito said, “As you can see at the top of the page performance, as everybody knows, living through it was quite challenging. And that led to a relatively challenging set of statistics on the bottom of this page.”

But the trend turned more sanguine at the end of last year.

“Now, it turned out to be a very active M&A environment, and in some of our sectors it was nice to see it, especially toward the end of the year, and we expect to see it continuing into 2023,” he said.

Pharmaceutical giants with a list of potential blockbuster drugs either being approved or awaiting approval — like Biogen and Eli Lilly — were met with much interest during the event Monday.

Biogen CEO Christopher Viehbacher, right, speaks during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 9 in San Francisco. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved last week Lecanemab, a treatment for Alzheimer’s jointly developed by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Biogen and Japan’s Eisai, despite some concerns surrounding its side effects.

Biogen CEO Christopher Viehbacher said the company will build on the initial success surrounding the drug.

“I see Alzheimer’s is becoming a franchise for us. So with our partner Eisai, this isn’t just about the launch of the Lecanemab, but we have two other assets in development. There's an awful lot of studies that can be done as well to build up that franchise,” the CEO said during the conference.

The drug is intended to tackle the root of the condition and slow cognitive decline for those in the early stages of the disease.

The approval garnered substantial attention because, so far, there is only one FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatment.

Eli Lilly is also developing its own Alzheimer’s drug called donanemab, with plans to launch it this year. Besides donanemab, the company has four new launches planned for the year, including tirzepatide for the treatment of obesity.

Attendees of the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference listen to opening remarks on Jan.9 at The Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco. [SAMSUNG BIOLOGICS]

Patrik Jonsson, president of Lilly’s U.S. arm, described the year as an exciting moment, saying that “the impact we can make on patients has never been bigger than this right now.”

Mirati Therapeutics is among the few companies to have secured an approval for a blockbuster drug last year, and its CEO David Meek is looking to send the product outside of the home turf to European and potentially Asian countries.

Mirati gained an accelerated approval from the FDA for Krazati, a small molecule inhibitor for a specific type of lung cancer.

The CEO said during the company’s presentation that it expects the European authorities to grant approval in the third quarter this year.

He added that there are no specific plans yet for other parts of the world, including Korea and Latin America, although the CEO noted Korea as “an important market.”

Local bio companies big and small also attended the conference, though none delivered a presentation on the first day.

Samsung Biologics CEO John Rim is expected to pitch its expansion plan for the contract manufacturing of drugs and its ambitions for the contract development segment on Jan. 11.

Attention is also on whether the CEO will share the company’s plan to ramp up production.

The company runs four contract manufacturing organization (CMO) plants in Songdo, Incheon, with the fourth factory expected to become the world’s largest in terms of annual capacity at full operation. With an annual capacity of 240,000 liters, the fourth factory partially opened last October.

The fourth plant is likely to bring the company's annual production capacity to 604,000 liters, which Samsung Biologics says is equivalent to nearly 30 percent of the global contract manufacturing market for biopharmaceuticals. The construction of the fourth plant is expected to be completed by July 2023.

Samsung Biologics previously revealed its plan for building fifth and sixth plants, and details about them may be included in the presentation or a press briefing held on the sidelines of the event.

As a relative newcomer, Lotte Biologics will likely present its vision to become a leading contract manufacturing unit for drug makers and detail how it will deploy a factory it acquired from Bristol-Myers Squibb last year.

CEO Richard Lee will deliver the speech on Jan. 10.

Lotte will renovate the Syracuse plant to fulfill contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) orders.

The Korean drug company completed its $160 million purchase of Bristol Myers Squibb’s pharmaceutical plant earlier this month.

In the beginning phase, Lotte Biologics will use the plant to manufacture $220 million of bio products over three years for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

SD Biosensor, a leading test-kit developer based in Suwon, Gyeonggi, will update its business strategies and status regarding the acquisition of Cincinnati, Ohio’s Meridian Bioscience.

The two sides entered into an agreement for the $1.53 billion deal last July, but multiple media reports say that SD Biosensor has delayed the close of the deal.

Before Covid-19, SD Biosensor was a frontrunner in diagnostic kits for previous outbreaks such as Ebola in 2014 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2015.

SD Biosensor went public on the Kospi in July, making it Korea’s largest test-kit developer by market capitalization. It is also No. 1 in terms of sales.

Other smaller bio companies are invited to the international event, including Hanmi Pharmaceutical, SK bioscience, Yuhan, Genome & Co and JW Pharmaceutical.

They are not entitled to make a presentation in the main track, but the companies will hold a round of meetings with potential partners.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]