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INDUSTRY RESEARCHTakeaways From the Institutional Research Group J.P. Morgan HealthcareConference Brian WrightLead Research Analyst,Healthcarebrian.wright@pitchbook.com Ben ZercherSenior Research Analyst,Biotech & Pharmaben.zercher@pitchbook.com The dawning of a new era in healthcare pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Published on January 16, 2026 Contents Key takeaways Key takeaways1Summary2AI at JPM 2026: From theoretical hype tooperational ROI3Major LLM healthcare announcements6China biotech deals persist7Federal health policy and innovation updates7GLP-1s9Additional takeaways10 •Cautious optimism returns amid policy scars:JPM 2026 reflected a cautiousoptimism following 2025’s policy turbulence, with investors increasinglyconstructive on structural reform tailwinds—particularly FDA acceleration, AI-enabled drug development, and care-delivery transformation. •AI shifts from promise to performance:Across biopharma and healthtech,the narrative on AI moved decisively from theoretical upside to demonstratedoperational ROI, with agentic AI, closed-loop discovery, and ambient clinicalautomation emerging as near-term value drivers. •Medtech anchors M&A momentum:Boston Scientific’s $14.5 billion acquisition ofPenumbra underscored continued appetite for megadeals, reinforcing medtech asa reliable source of deal value despite muted overall transaction volume. •Biopharma dealmaking pauses, but momentum stays intact:While rumoredlarge-cap pharma acquisitions failed to materialize, underlying innovation velocity—particularly in oncology, cardiometabolic, and AI-native pipelines—remains strongheading into 2026. •Drug discovery enters the agentic era:High-profile initiatives such as the $1billion Eli Lilly-NVIDIA Co-Innovation AI Lab validated AI as an end-to-end enginefor molecule generation, while smaller players emphasized proprietary biologicalfoundation models and differentiated data strategies. •Ambient AI catalyzes a care-delivery rethink:Standing-room-only sessionsfor ModMed and Abridge highlighted ambient scribing and AI-powered clinical/administrative agents as inflection technologies reshaping provider workflowsand economics. •No AI bubble in healthcare—yet:Unlike in other tech sectors, AI adoption inhealthcare is grounded in real-world deployment, measurable productivity gains,and enterprise-scale contracts across providers, health systems, and life sciences. •Federal innovation posture turns proactive:CMS used JPM 2026 as anindustry outreach forum, while ARPA-H emerged as a powerful DARPA-likecatalyst with billion-dollar, high-risk programs aimed at breaking regulatory andclinical bottlenecks. Summary Policy uncertainty gives way to tailwinds The overall tone at the 2026 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM 2026), heldfrom January 12 to 15 in San Francisco, was an understated, cautious optimismfollowing a tumultuous policy year in 2025. Wounds take time to heal, and the woundsof 2025 policy uncertainty are still fresh, but looking forward there is a sense that weare on the cusp of meaningful positive structural reforms that can happen only in thisAI era. Advancements in AI in drug discovery, though still meeting a more skepticalinvestor audience, should improve clinical trial success rates and fundamentallyimprove the risk-reward profile in investing in early-stage biotech assets. In addition,ambient-scribing technology integrated with multiple clinical and administrativeagents has the power to revolutionize care delivery in a way that was previouslyinconceivable within the historically conservative health system industry. While policydisagreements remain about Medicaid and health insurance exchanges, the US Foodand Drug Administration (FDA) is advancing the regulatory framework to acceleratedrug development approval, understanding that the US needs to reverse its ceding ofdrug development innovation to China to prevent what happened in the semiconductorindustry from occurring in healthcare. We are on the cusp ofmeaningful positivestructural reforms that canhappen only in this AI era. We were also impressed with the Department of Health and Human Services’presentation on its Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) programdesigned after the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency (DARPA). The annual billion-dollar project-based investing program has thepower to fund high-impact, high-risk/high-reward endeavors but also deliver theclout to break down regulatory barriers. We provide details on open funding programopportunities later in this note. In the near term, the cautiously optimistic outlook for deal activity should provide aneasy hurdle to overcome, as we expect a robust and expectations-breaking 2026. Medtech provides the megadeal while biopharma remains quiet In one of the