After a whirlwind of conference news Monday, we're doing it all over again with Day 2 of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Today will feature presentations from Big Pharmas including GSK, AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk, and Fierce's own event kicks off at the Hyatt Regency. Be sure to check in all day to stay on top of the conference buzz.
If you missed our coverage yesterday, check out Monday's tracker here for a recap of the conference's opening day. For up-to-date biotech headlines, check out Fierce Biotech's Day 2 tracker here.
UPDATE: 7:50 p.m. ET
For as well as Eli Lilly is performing in becoming the first biopharma company to be valued at $1 trillion, according to its market cap, it’s surprising to hear that CEO David Ricks has few answers when it comes to what the market will hold for the company’s oral GLP-1 treatment orflorglipron.
“One thing as we look back at the obesity market, it’s probably surprised us at every turn, so I’m reluctant to give out very specific numbers or anything like that,” Ricks said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Ricks said that the company does expect that orflorglipron will appeal, first, to those who “have an aversion to needles.” Lilly’s market research also indicates that there are potential users who are hesitant to try what they view as a more radical step up to an injected treatment as opposed to an “interim step that’s more appealing,” Ricks said of a GLP-1 pill.
Lilly also believes that orflorglipron will play a larger role internationally because it can be much more easily supplied than the injected and refrigerated treatments that have handling and distribution constraints.
Ricks added that the company also sees a segment of consumers who have leveled off their weight loss after using injected treatments for 18 to 24 months and are ready to try a pill for maintenance.
Lilly expects to get an FDA decision on orflorglipron in the second quarter of this year and also anticipates that by then it will be available—along with other obesity treatments—through Medicare Part D.
As for 2026 guidance, Ricks reiterated the unpredictability of the obesity market, saying that the company would likely establish a broad revenue range with uncertainties surrounding the effect of Medicare Part D and the willingness of consumers outside of the U.S. to self-pay for their obesity drugs.
UPDATE: 7:29 p.m. ET
At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, Samsung Biologics touted its “three-dimensional expansion” which includes its first U.S. manufacturing site, a sales office in Japan and further investments and expansions in new modalities and additional plants.
The U.S. site, located in Rockville, Maryland, came from a purchase agreement with GSK late last year. Stretching the company's footprint to the U.S. took longer than the company would have liked, CEO John Rim said, admitting that the CDMO “lost customers” without a prior U.S. presence. To questions that it may now have “too much capacity,” Rim argues that the market is “robust” and growing. Even more capacity gains are planned for 2026 as the company looks to provide a steady stream of drug supply.
UPDATE: 5:00 p.m. ET
After Bayer indicated that Xarelto’s loss of exclusivity (LOE) was set to reach “full swing” in 2025, the company isn’t out of the woods in 2026, although the situation is trending in a positive direction, executives said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
All told, Bayer expects to continue facing sales pressure from Xarelto generics this year and next before things start to “slow down” and the drug ultimately hits a sales “floor” of roughly 900 million euros to 1 billion euros over the next two years, Olivier Mauroy Bressier, Bayer’s CFO for pharmaceuticals, said during the JPM event.
The positive news for investors, meanwhile, is that Bayer expects the situation around another of its meds losing exclusivity—the Regeneron-partnered Eylea—to be a “softer kind of loss of exclusivity,” according to Bressier.
Now, banking on a return to growth in the coming years, Bayer is touting the potential of its “rejuvenated portfolio” of drugs including Nubeqa and Kerendia in the near term, as well as Beyonttra, Lynkuet and, potentially, the secondary stroke prevention candidate asundexian from 2027 onward, according to a presentation (PDF) published in conjunction with the conference.
Over the first nine months of 2025, prostate cancer med Nubeqa delivered sales of 1.7 billion euros (nearly $2 billion), while kidney disease and heart failure drug Kerendia generated around 600 million euros (nearly $700M), representing Bayer’s “next blockbuster in the making,” the company’s pharma president Stefan Oelrich said at the JPM event.
Meanwhile, as new launches like Beyonttra and Lynkuet come into their own, Bayer is eagerly anticipating a phase 3 data drop on asundexian, an oral anticoagulant that could potentially score FDA approval in late 2026. Bayer has already started engaging with health authorities around the drug, which it believes possesses blockbuster sales potential.
UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. ET
Lonza has added additional contracts to perform work at its key facility in Vacaville, California, which it acquired from Roche in a $1.2 billion purchase in 2024, the CDMO giant said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Lonza has secured four large signed contracts, which is up from one contract that the Swiss company reported in October. The biologics manufacturing site is especially crucial for Lonza with clients seeking to bolster their supply networks and avoid tariffs on pharmaceutical products that are imported into the U.S.
“Customer interest is high,” said Lonza CEO Wolfgang Weinand. “With the desire to regionalize supply chains and with limited capacities in the U.S., this capacity is highly valuable. We are in very constructive discussions with customers but can’t share anything else at least today.”
Weinand added that he was set to host two potential clients at the nearby facility on Wednesday. He said that the site was “acquired at a great point in time” considering the policies installed by the Trump administration in 2025. Upgrades are ongoing at the facility, which Lonza expects will achieve peak sales by 2030.
UPDATE: 4:27 p.m. ET
Leo Pharma is using the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference to scout for potential partnerships as it continues on its mission to address the 1,000 skin diseases with no approved therapies, CEO Christophe Bourdon told Fierce in an interview. The company’s partnership plan leverages its dermatologist network and in-house development platform to launch promising assets initiated by other drugmakers, a premise that has resulted in “a lot of people knocking on our door” for potential deals, Bourdon said. Story
UPDATE: 4:05 p.m. ET
Three years into Teva’s “Pivot to Growth” revamp strategy, CEO Richard Francis is making the case that his company’s newfound momentum is here to stay.
“It’s not a five-year plan,” Francis said of the strategy on the stage of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Tuesday. “This is a 20-year plan, and everything we’re doing is setting Teva up for success over the long-term future.”
A big factor in Teva’s return to growth—which has now been going steady for 11 straight quarters—comes down to a refreshed focus on innovative drugs, with Francis noting that “you cannot transform the company’s financials like we have without transforming the portfolio.”
Now, as later-stage assets like long-acting olanzapine for schizophrenia and a dual-action asthma rescue inhaler near the conclusions of their development cycles, Teva is increasingly confident that it’s sitting on $10 billion in innovative pipeline potential, Francis said.
In fact, moving forward, Teva aims to become a company that launches a new product on a roughly annual basis, potentially with a one-year gap here or there, the CEO added.
Still, despite the company's focus on developing novel medications, Teva isn’t abandoning the generic and biosimilars business that has propped it up for years.
Biosimilars present a particularly enticing opportunity on that front, according to Francis. And while Teva was “late to the party with biosimilars,” the company now has 10 on the market and another six that it’s hoping to launch “before ’27,” the CEO said. With the cash from its generics and biosimilar sales, Teva continues to pay down debt and reinvest in its portfolio of innovative medicine candidates, Francis explained.
UPDATE: 3:53 p.m. ET
Roughly a year after its transformation into a commercial biopharma company, Ionis is apparently still getting the hang of making peak sales projections.
In what must have been a pleasant surprise for investors, the company on Monday revealed that it’s amping up its peak revenue forecast for Tryngolza in severe hypertriglyceridemia (sHTG) to $2 billion-plus. Previously, the company had expected $1 billion-plus in the use.
The updated guidance comes from research in the healthcare professional community pointing to a significant increase in projected sales volumes versus the company’s previous expectation, CEO Brett Monia, Ph.D., said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
If everything goes according to plan, Tryngolza could debut in the indication by around midyear. Story
UPDATE: 1:55 p.m. ET
Following what CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar admitted was a “difficult 2025” for Novo Nordisk, the company in the new year is focused on launching its recently approved Wegovy pill and, hopefully, its higher-dose injectable Wegovy, as well as “mastering” cash pay channels, the chief executive said.
The obesity playing field resembles more of a “consumer market” than is typical for pharmaceuticals, the CEO pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Danish drugmaker also hopes to bring “several” new obesity and diabetes assets into the clinic in 2026, according to Doustdar.
Doustdar didn’t mince words about the challenges his company faced last year, or the aspects of its GLP-1 commercialization that have fallen short. The CEO stressed that he didn’t want to “belittle” those hurdles, while arguing that Novo’s experience represents “the curse of a leader.”
To hear Doustdar tell it, 2025 served as a wake-up call for Novo, illustrating to the company “that we’re no longer on our own, and we need to hurry up” when it comes to competing with the likes of Eli Lilly and others in the metabolic medicine business.
“So, our job is this year to recognize what were some of the things that we could do better,” the CEO said.
Overcoming GLP-1 access barriers through tools like direct-to-patient marketing platforms will be a big part of those efforts, Doustdar noted, highlighting the “massive amount of partnerships” his company has struck with virtual health platforms like Ro, LifeMD, Amazon and Weight Watchers to help patients access drugs like Wegovy when insurance won’t foot the bill.
UPDATE: 1:44 p.m. ET
The last few years for Moderna have been “difficult, as you can imagine,” CEO Stéphane Bancel said late Monday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Bancel was referring to post-COVID sales declines and, more recently, the regulatory changes impacting the U.S. vaccine field. To weather these challenges, the company plans to use its “large seasonal vaccine franchise” to garner cash flows for investments in oncology and rare diseases, the CEO explained.
Last year was a “year of execution,” with some $1.9 billion in expected sales to show for it, according to Bancel. That’s $100 million above the company's previously expected midpoint guidance range, Bancel pointed out.
In 2026 Moderna should see up to 10% revenue growth, with continued momentum expected through 2028, when the company’s vaccine sales should enable it to break even on cash flows.
By this time next year, Moderna “could be looking at” a five-vaccine commercial portfolio, Bancel said, with an mRNA flu vaccine and a flu/COVID combo shot expected to join the company’s existing group of COVID-19 vaccine Spikevax, newer COVID shot mNexspike and respiratory syncytial virus vaccine mResvia.
UPDATE: 1:40 p.m. ET
Two years after setting out on its own, Sandoz is focused on capitalizing on the company’s “tremendous opportunity” as biopharma’s only pure-play generic and biosimilar player with global reach, CEO Richard Saynor said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Between the assets in Sandoz’s generic and biosimilars pipelines, the Swiss drugmaker is eying markets currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars in total sales, according to an investor presentation (PDF) prepared for the JPM event.
Within Sandoz’s biosimilar pipeline, the company touts 27 assets targeting some $200 billion in originator sales. As it stands, the company is developing copycat biologics to nearly 60% of the industry’s expected losses of exclusivity (LOEs) over the next decade. In the long run, the company believes regulatory streamlining will benefit this part of its portfolio, Saynor said.
As for generics, Sandoz boasts 400-plus assets in its pipeline targeting some $220 billion in originator sales. Here, GLP-1 generics could provide a tailwind over the long run.
Meanwhile, the oft-discussed “biosimilar void” presents another opportunity for the firm, Saynor explained. The “biosimilar void” is a term for a general dearth of biosimilars for near-term biologic LOEs in the industry. It’s an “area where Sandoz can lead,” Saynor explained, saying that “regulatory streamlining and evolving market dynamics create a window” for the company to act.
The void creates a “strategic opportunity to shape the future of affordable biologics,” Saynor emphasized.
UPDATE: 1:15 p.m. ET
Change has been a constant at Viatris ever since the company formed through the merger of Mylan and Pfizer’s former Upjohn unit back in 2020. Now, after a series of divestitures and restructuring-related moves in subsequent years, the company is entering a “very strong period of stability,” CEO Scott Smith said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
The company’s catalysts for 2026 include planned U.S. launches of a low-dose weekly estrogen patch for contraception and its fast-acting meloxicam for acute pain, as well as the rollout of heart failure med sotagliflozin in ex-U.S. and ex-European markets, according to an investor presentation (PDF).
Viatris is also expecting 2026 trial readouts for assets in IgA nephropathy, influenza and ophthalmology.
On the supply side of its business, Viatris last year received an FDA warning letter and import alert tied to substandard conditions at a massive plant in Indore, India. Speaking at JPM, Smith said the company has almost fully addressed the agency’s concerns and is anticipating an FDA reinspection.
In the wake of the import alert, the company has done legwork to create redundancies in its supply chain to work around the disruptions tied to the Indore plant, the CEO said.
UPDATE: 10:33 a.m. ET
With 80 phase 3 studies underway, Merck & Co. CEO Rob Davis sees potential for more than $70 billion in revenues for the company by the mid-2030s.
To hear Davis tell it, the coming two years will be critical, with clinical readouts slated to help Merck determine if it can “meaningfully derisk” that lofty commercial outlook.
Ten key products could contribute 70% of that $70 billion, Davis said. These include pulmonary arterial hypertension drug Winrevair, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medication Ohtuvayre and RSV prevention antibody Enflonsia.
From the clinical side, Kelun Biotech-partnered antibody-drug conjugate sac-TMT already boasts 16 global phase 3 trials, 11 of which have the potential to be first in class, according to Davis. Merck recently secured FDA Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers for sac-TMT and oral PCSK9 candidate enlicitide, another member of the 10 assets highlighted by Davis.
Merck got its hands on several of the 10 meds through business development plays. Having invested over $60 billion since 2021—when Davis became CEO—the company is “not done” with dealmaking, he said.
The main pressure for Merck’s business comes from the upcoming loss of exclusivity (LOE) of megablockbuster Keytruda. But Davis has described the LOE as a hill rather than a cliff.
“I'm quite confident that we will be in a position, at a minimum, to go through a very shallow period” before returning to growth, Davis said.
“We have more to do. We're not there yet,” he added. “But with the actions we’ve already taken, the progress we’ve made, and the execution [that] was demonstrated, I'm confident we eventually will be there.”
UPDATE: 9:50 a.m. ET
Ahead of its Wednesday presentation at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Belgium’s UCB is celebrating the momentum it captured in 2025 and laying the groundwork to keep that growth story rolling through the next decade and beyond.
Emboldened by a quintet of commercial growth drivers—Bimzelx, Rystiggo, Zilbrysq, Fintepla and Evenity—UCB in December raised its full-year guidance, now predicting total 2025 revenues will exceed 7.6 billion euros (nearly $8.9 billion).
As for what lies ahead for the Belgian drugmaker, UCB in November scored an FDA nod for the U.S.’ first thymidine kinase 2 deficiency drug in Kygevvi, which the company aims to launch this quarter, UCB said in a Jan. 13 press release issued in conjunction with the conference.
Meanwhile, the company’s IL-17 antagonist Bimzelx is primed for a major boost in 2026 as “coverage in the U.S. has surged,” UCB explained in its release. The drug—approved in conditions like plaque psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis and hidradenitis suppurativa—has so far reached some 100,000 patients globally, with UCB noting that expanded U.S. access this year will enable coverage for 36 million additional people.
That overall performance “reaffirms our intact decade-plus growth trajectory, driven by the excellence of our execution and the strength of our innovation,” UCB chief executive Jean-Christophe Tellier said in a statement Tuesday. His company’s JPM presentation is scheduled for Wednesday morning.