A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Healthy Returns newsletter, bringing the latest healthcare news directly to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions.
Good morning from San Francisco! It's day three of JPMorgan Healthcare's annual conference, the largest gathering of biotech and pharma executives, investors and analysts in the US.
This week the sun has shone and so has the optimism of the sector. Several drugmakers, investors and advisors suggest that 2026 is already shaping up to be a good (or at least better) year than last, with major drug pricing and tariff hurdles largely resolved, interest rates falling and, most importantly, encouraging science coming out of companies large and small.
On the negotiations front, this week has been relatively quiet. No major deals have been announced, but that doesn't mean they aren't on the way. Meanwhile, companies are plotting the year ahead, highlighting key updates to their businesses and drug pipelines.
Here's a summary of what I heard in my conversations with some top CEOs.
Nordisk Mike Doustdar, CEO told me in an interview Monday that the company's new oral GLP-1 obesity pill, the Wegovy pill, and its injectable counterpart of the same name will allow it to expand the incretin market in 2026.
But he said this year “will be the year of price pressure” following a drug pricing deal Novo Nordisk reached with President Donald Trump in November, along with the introduction of cheaper generic versions of some of the company's drugs in certain international markets.
“When the price goes down, you feel the impact immediately,” Doustdar said. But he added that the company is looking to increase volume to offset those price cuts, which “won't happen overnight.”
Doustdar added that in addition to advancing its own portfolio, Novo Nordisk will be active on the business development side to “see if anyone else has something that can complement our own portfolio.” Those comments come after Novo Nordisk lost a heated bidding war with Pfizer last year for anti-obesity biotech Metsera.
Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner He told me in an interview Tuesday that the company has the potential to deliver up to 10 new products by the end of the decade. Those comments come as Bristol Myers Squibb prepares to offset losses from an upcoming cycle of losing exclusivity for blockbuster drugs over the next few years, allowing generic competitors to come to market.
“We've intentionally built this portfolio to be quite diverse, and while we know not everything is going to work out, we feel very good about the substrate we have in the late stage of development, and the mid-stage is progressing very well as well,” he said.
Boerner highlighted 11 readouts of late-stage programs in 2026 on six potential new products. That includes upcoming trials in Alzheimer's psychosis, called the Adept program, for Cobenfy, the company's prescription drug approved in late 2024 for the treatment of adults with schizophrenia.
When it comes to business development, Boerner said the company is “casting a wide net.” He added that Bristol Myers Squibb hopes to leverage the core therapeutic areas it knows well, examine different phases of development and focus on “the best, most innovative science we can find” to address difficult-to-treat diseases.
Pfizer General Director Albert Bourla said the company is “fully committed to obesity” following its roughly $10 billion acquisition of obesity biotech Metsera last year. Speaking to a group of reporters on Monday, Bourla said the company plans to launch 10 different late-stage studies of Metsera's anti-obesity products by the end of the year, including a study that began in November.
He also said there were some things Pfizer didn't take into account when negotiating the deal with Metsera, including the large out-of-pocket market for obesity drugs, where patients are willing to pay cash for treatments. Bourla compared the opportunity to Pfizer's experience with Viagra, which the company launched in 1998.
“Both Lilly and Novo presented their sales and had significant sales outside the rebate system. Basically, outside the US, we were estimating very limited sales,” Bourla said. “Now we see that it works almost like Viagra, where people were willing to pay and buy it, even though it wasn't reimbursed at all.”
And here are some of the other pharmaceutical news that emerged during the conference:
- Eli Lilly and NVIDIA On Monday it announced that the two companies would jointly invest up to $1 billion over five years to create a lab in San Francisco focused on using AI to accelerate drug discovery.
- Abvie On Monday it reached a deal with the Trump administration to reduce some of its drug prices and invest $100 billion domestically over the next decade in exchange for a tariff waiver and “future pricing mandates.” The company is now among more than a dozen big pharma that signed similar deals with Trump as part of his “most favored nation” policy.
- Abvie also said Monday that it agreed to pay $650 million up front to license an experimental cancer therapy from China's RemeGen, in a deal that could eventually be worth nearly $5.6 billion.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and facts to Annika at a new email: [email protected].
