JPM 2026: Top Four Business Highlights

The world’s largest healthcare investment conference, J.P Morgan Healthcare Conference, ends today and as always, major companies have used the conference as a platform to announce acquisitions and partnerships.

1. AbbVie and RemeGen in USD 5.6 billion oncology agreement

AbbVie and RemeGen signed the first deal, with the companies agreeing to an exclusive oncology licensing agreement. Under the agreement, AbbVie will hand over USD 650 million in upfront payments, while committing to pay up to USD 4.95 billion if the therapy meets certain regulatory, development and commercial milestones. In exchange, RemeGen will grant AbbVie the exclusive development, manufacturing and commercialisation rights to RC148 outside of the Greater China region. RemeGen will be entitled to receive tiered, double-digit royalties on net sales outside of Greater China if RC148 were to make it to market.

2. Eli Lilly and Nvidia commit USD 1 billion to AI co‑innovation lab

Lilly and Nvidia announced an expanded AI partnership, including a USD 1 billion co‑innovation lab in the Bay Area to integrate advanced computing and biology for drug discovery. The initiative builds on their earlier plan to build what they called pharma’s “most powerful” supercomputer, reinforcing AI as a core strategic capability in large‑cap pharma.

3. Novartis buys radioligand peptide program from PepLib 

Novartis agreed to pay USD 50 million in cash upfront (plus undisclosed milestones) for a peptide‑based radioligand oncology program from Zonsen PepLib Biotech. Under the terms of the agreement, PepLib will receive an upfront payment of USD 50 million with the potential to receive additional development, regulatory and sales milestone payments, and is also eligible for tiered royalies on future global net sales.

4. AstraZeneca acquires Modella AI

AstraZeneca is acquiring its AI partner Modella AI to own and deploy multimodal AI foundation models in‑house across discovery and development. The acquisition will embed Modella AI’s multi-modal foundation models and AI agents into AstraZeneca’s oncology R&D environment, enabling the generation of new biological and clinical insights, as well as greater automation, scalability, and consistency across data-intensive workflows. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Other JPM 2026 news

During the event, Pfizer also outlined its post‑Metsera obesity plan (10 Phase 3 trials by end‑2026), and Novo Nordisk leadership acknowledged ceding Metsera to Pfizer but stressed a pivot toward mastering the US cash‑pay obesity market and broadening its own metabolic and cardiometabolic pipeline rather than chasing every contested asset.​AstraZeneca signaled massive late‑stage pipeline and obesity ambitions, Amgen pushes MariTide into six global Phase 3 obesity studies, Takeda’s China deal was framed as blueprint for cross‑border pipelines, and Bristol Myers Squibb leans on emerging blockbusters plus cost cuts they announced.

Rumors also swirl around potential Merck–Revolution Medicines (USD 28–32 billion) and Lilly–Abivax (≈EUR 15–18 billion) deals.

This text (last paragraph) was partly produced with the help of AI and fact-checked by NLS.