Lessons from JPM: Be Ready for AI, But Most of All, Be Ready.

No event is better at setting the tone for what might happen the rest of the year in the biopharmaceutical industry than the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco. Healthcare remains the most vital sector of not just the economy of the United States, but the world’s. Even amidst uncertainty in macroeconomic areas, the people I met with and the presentations I attended conveyed a sense of optimism about what’s ahead for the industry, science, health and most importantly patients.

Despite so much innovation and commitment to research and development of new compounds, venture capital financings of early stage biotechs have been challenging in this economic environment. However, there is broad optimism that biotech companies with promising science and mid to late-stage pipelines will continue to attract significant investment.

Commercialization activity continues to be strong. Here are my key observations and takeaways:

• As always, science leads. Oncology continues to be the leading therapeutic area, but there is optimism around several disease states that may be ready to finally break through with compelling science. This year’s JPM seemed to be a coming out party for neuroscience, with new, innovative treatments coming down the pike soon. This is welcome news for the many people globally who are impacted by both mainstream and rare neuroscience conditions that today often have no treatments at all or sub-optimal treatment approaches. We saw similar trends over the last five years in oncology and rare disease and as a result tremendous progress. With all the focus on specialty care, I have to say I was incredibly excited about the prospective breakthroughs in obesity after hearing presentations from Eli Lily, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer. It seems we are finally at that pinnacle moment where obesity will have effective medical treatments that make true impact on people’s lives and most importantly their overall health. These are true areas of need and patients will benefit from scientific advances more than ever before.

• The boss must be ready and have a vision. I noticed a stark difference in the quality of the presentations between the CEOs who appeared to have done their homework, honed their story, and rehearsed, and those who looked to be merely reading off PowerPoint slides. The well-prepared CEOs gave the audience useful information and handled questions well, a skill even more important in recent years as the public looks more frequently for CEOs to articulate a vision beyond just a company’s financial performance. The premium on knowing the message and getting it right is as high as it has ever been.

• AI Is Having Its Moment. I was surprised at how often ChatGPT came up in conversations at JPM, a sign not just that the AI bot had its cultural zeitgeist moment but also that artificial intelligence has entered mainstream business thinking. That hasn’t stopped since JPM concluded, as I’ve seen ChatGPT pop up in all sorts of news stories. When it comes to the coming world of AI, we’re certainly ready for it here at Real Chemistry, as for the past few years we’ve been using advanced AI to power real-time insights with our partners and clients to give them unprecedented reach and relevance.

Real Chemistry Showed Up and Came to Play

I was excited to see how often our Real Chemistry team acted as conveners between various parts of the healthcare world. Our deep knowledge of the entire healthcare ecosystem was on display in real time in San Francisco as we connected people, introduced clients to other clients for potential collaborations, and made sure journalists, analysts, investors and other stakeholders had access to the information they needed. This kind of collaboration is essential in health – where there are disparate and unconnected segments that must come together to improve patient experience.