A surge in deals and financings had the industry abuzz heading into this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. But some aren’t sure if the rebound is here to stay
SAN FRANCISCO — The irony isn’t lost on Alexis Borisy. The famed biotechnology investor has, all this week, at the industry’s biggest event, been taking meetings from a downtown hotel suite, on a glossy, powder blue couch that has an odd resemblance to a drug capsule. I guess it really does, he said with a booming laugh.
Borisy has co-founded handfuls of companies, including his current passion project, the venture capital firm Curie.Bio, and the cancer drugmaker Revolution Medicines, which is rumored to be in talks for a deal worth tens of billions of dollars. He’s also been coming to the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference for decades, since it was run by Hambrecht & Quist. This year, for the first time in several, he found attendees significantly more optimistic. They have reasons to be.
A historic downturn in the biotech sector that began in late 2021 is finally showing signs of subsiding. Acquisition activity spiked in the back half of last year, when at least 28 deals worth $50 million or more were announced.
Money has also started to pour in again. HSBC’s Innovation Banking division counted 157 venture capital deals, totaling $7 billion, in just the fourth quarter. Taking a wider look, RBC Capital Markets tallied $22 billion in biotech investing in the last three months of 2025, which was “on par” with levels seen at the peak of the 2020-2021 bubble. So far, the momentum has continued into 2026. “So much for dry January,” wrote Raymond James analysts, who highlighted “big time biotech inflows” of $1.2 billion in the first full week of the new year.
“We’re in a good place right now as a sector,” said John Maraganore, the founding CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and former chairperson of biotech’s biggest trade group.
Yet, alongside the excitement is an undercurrent of unease — that this rebound may be fragile, and may not continue as hoped if the industry doesn’t play its cards right.
The tension could be felt throughout J.P. Morgan. There was real frustration when, on the conference’s opening day, no major deals came. Brad Loncar, another prominent biotech investor turned media analyst, lamented the “slowest JPM for news in a long time.” Others appear to agree. The XBI, a closely watched biotech fund, ended the four-day meeting essentially flat.
“I think we’re in the early innings of the upswing,” Borisy said. But “we don’t know for sure. Because when you’re down in the trough, you can have false dawns, and you can bounce along there for a long period of time.”
What is clear is that experts see a push and pull to all the biggest factors affecting the industry.
https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/jpm26-biotech-startups-deals-venture-ipo-fda-china/809809/
