Unlike previous years, the 39th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference was not held in San Francisco, but took place virtually through video conferencing. Between the closing of the 2020 J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference and January 2021, the pharmaceutical industry had to face a global pandemic. But in spite of lockdowns, social distancing restrictions, economic breakdown, the pharma industry recorded an amazing 2020 year in terms of acquisitions and partnerships. Moreover it succeeded in developing and bringing to market vaccines and therapeutics against Covid-19 in an astonishing time.

Much of that is likely to continue in 2021, as companies explained at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, and activity around acquisitions is scheduled to remain strong. It is likely that this trend of mega-deals will continue, as Big Pharma continue to favour M&A over internal R&D as a means of innovation and portfolio diversification. Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Giovanni Caforio confirmed that another deal is well within the company's reach this year, due to its significant financial flexibility. In October 2020, the company had already unveiled a $13 billion deal to buy MyoKardia.

If the first weeks of 2021 did not look like those of 2019 (the biggest agreement of history was announced on January 2 with BMS acquiring Celgene under a transaction of $74 billion), nor those of 2018 (with Sanofi spending $16.6 billion to acquire Ablynx and Bioverativ and Celgene merging with Juno Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $9 billion), acquisitions were still on top of Big Pharma's priorities. Since the start of the year, pharma companies have committed $2.6 billion in upfront payments across deals.

Once again, Sanofi used the J.P. Morgan conference as a backdrop to unveil a new deal that will strengthen its positions against immune disorders and dermatitis. The French company, which is facing delays in developing its two vaccine candidates against Covid-19, entered into an agreement to acquire Kymab for $1.1 billion. The purchase of the UK biotech will give the company full rights to an anti-OX40L monoclonal antibody (KY21005) that improves outcomes in atopic dermatitis patients. In 2020, KY1005 met both primary endpoints of a Phase IIa trial in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis whose disease could not be adequately controlled with topical corticosteroids. Kymab's pipeline also includes an oncology asset KY1044 currently in Phase I/II development. One year ago, Sanofi had already struck a deal to buy Synthorx for $2.5 billion before going on to pay $3.7 billion for Principia Biopharma and $358 million for Kiadis. Like the Kymab takeover, these deals gave Sanofi autoimmune and immuno-oncology drugs.

In the meantime, Novartis penned a deal with BeiGene company to in-license its PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab in major markets outside of China at an upfront cost of $650 million plus up to $1.55bn in milestones. The Chinese previously had a deal with Celgene on this product which terminated in 2019 after the group's takeout by Bristol Myers Squibb. Novartis said tislelizumab's first filing outside of China is expected in 2021.