I attended the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. Thousands of attendees spilled out into a 6-block radius around Union Square, taking over the hotels, restaurants, bars and coffee shops in the area — and sometimes paying $22 for a cup of coffee. As usual, big announcements took center stage at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, including deals, financing, collaborations, and hires.

Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Celgene, for instance, announced their $74 billion merger to compete with blockbuster drugs like Opdivo (nivolumab), Yervoy (ipilimumab), Revlimid (lenalidomide), and Eliquis (apixaban).

Giovanni Caforio, chairman and chief executive officer for BMS, said that BMS and Celgene will collaborate mostly in the fields of oncology, autoimmune diseases, and cardiology.

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Eli Lilly announced its purchase of biotech firm Loxo Oncology for $8 billion. Loxo focuses on inhibiting cancer tumors exhibiting genetic mutations. Eli Lilly commented that Loxo Oncology is developing targeted medicines for cancers that are “uniquely dependent on single gene abnormalities that can be detected by genomic testing.” For patients who have these genome-based cancers, targeted medicines have the best potential for treatment, the company says.

According to CEO Marc Casper, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s R&D focus in 2019 will be on electron microscopy, mass spec and chromatography, as well as clinical sequencing. He believes there is a “great growth opportunity” for electron microscopy in structural biology.

Thermo Fisher Scientific company plans to develop further the automated mass spec instrument it introduced last year. Casper also noted that the company’s focus in clinical sequencing will be on ensuring its sequencing instruments are “more walkaway, more efficient, and with less hands-on time.”

Kevin Conroy, CEO of Exact Sciences, anticipates his company’s partnership with Pfizer will lead to more adoption of its Cologuard test for colon cancer screening. Exact Sciences is researching and identifying molecular biomarkers for indications other than colorectal cancer, such as liver cancer and even a universal cancer panel.

Guardant Health discussed the launch of LUNAR, a research-use-only liquid biopsy test for cancer recurrence. The company has plans to launch a clinical version this year, according to CEO Helmy Eltoukhy. Top-tier academic research networks and biopharmas will use LUNAR to study adjuvant therapy decision-making, recurrence monitoring, and screening for early-stage cancer. The company said it plans to focus on three key tumor types: lung, colorectal, and breast cancers.

Caris Life Sciences, a company enabling precision medicine to identify novel targets for cancer treatment and other complex diseases, plans to upgrade its targeted sequencing and proteomics tests. This according to David Spetzler, the firm’s president and chief scientific officer. He also said the company will begin work in the hematological malignancy space in addition to its work on solid tumors.

Illumina CEO Francis DeSouza said that, when it comes to the genomics revolution, “We are at the very beginning.” He noted that fewer than 0.01% of species have had their genomes sequenced; fewer than 0.02% of human genomes have been sequenced, and fewer than 1% of variants in the human genome have been fully distinguished.

DeSouza believes that, “the ubiquity and impact of genomics will dwarf everything we’ve seen to date.” At JPM, the Illumina chief noted five markets in which he sees potential for growth: non-invasive pregnancy testing (NIPT), rare and undiagnosed diseases (RUGD), population genomics, oncology, and consumer.

I also attended here an event called “AI in Biopharma: Hype vs. Hope”. Hosted by Atomwise, the event panel featured Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures founder; Brian Kobilka, MD, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford in the Kobilka; Rachel Sha, VP of Digital & Business Development, Sanofi, and Maya Said, Founder & CEO, Outcomes4Me Inc.

The event examined how there are a lot of people throwing around the buzz word, “AI”, but all industries and technology benefits from machine learning and data science. Many companies are using AI and machine learning today without being as explicit about it as companies have been in the past.

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