A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care news straight to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions.
Next week, I’ll be attending the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference – the largest gathering of biotech and pharma execs, investors and analysts in the U.S.
The conference often sets the tone for the year ahead, and will offer an early pulse on what the health-care industry could look like in 2026. Executives from companies large and small are expected to roll out key business and drug pipeline updates, announce splashy M&A deals and offer their read on industry sentiment more than a year into Trump 2.0.
That backdrop looks different than many in the industry feared earlier in 2025. Several major drugmakers ended the year with landmark drug pricing deals with President Donald Trump – and a reprieve from his planned sector-specific tariffs. As a result, drug pricing and other policies may not dominate executive conversations with investors for the first time in years.
Wall Street will likely zero in on pharma’s other problem: A roughly $300 billion patent cliff by the end of the decade. Blockbuster drugs such as the blood thinner Eliquis from Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer, and Merck’s top-selling cancer immunotherapy Keytruda will face competition from cheaper competitors in the years ahead, and companies are racing to offset those drops in revenue.
