Conversation, Coverage + Insights 2025
Conference Recap
As biopharma investors, executives, and media gathered in San Francisco for the 2025 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the biggest headlines surrounded major dealmaking, innovation out of China, patent cliffs and the uncertainty of a second Trump administration. However, across a busy few days, the prevailing mood among attendees and onlookers was one of “cautious optimism,” with the industry’s strong forward progress set to confront a mix of new and existing challenges.
Weber Shandwick followed the trends and emerging conversations on the ground and online.
Top from this year’s event:
With the industry bracing for a series of patent cliffs, large-cap players returned to high-value dealmaking after several years of muted M&G activity.
• Mentions of M&A increased 60% YoY.
• Day one brought significant deal activity, led by J&J (nearly $15B, neurology), Eli Lilly ($2.5B, breast cancer), and GSK ($1B, oncology) which all doubled down on existing therapeutic focus areas.
o J&J’s Intra-Cellular purchase represented the largest public biotech buyout in over a year.
Chinese-based innovation broke through on-theground and online. As both a “rival and partner,” this burst of interest in China has led to new questions about the future of drug pipelines and venture capital interest.
• STAT reported that more than a third of the therapeutic molecules bought by pharma companies came from China last year, up from zero just four years ago.
• Mentions including China rose 108% YoY.
The incoming Trump administration drew considerable attention, with most leaders focusing on potential new opportunities and conveying an eagerness to work with new policymakers.
• Most speakers avoided direct predictions on potential regulatory changes. Optimism regarding Trump was juxtaposed against concerns over RFK’s HHS nomination and what that means for vaccine policy.
o While RFK was mentioned directly in only 3% of stories, vaccine mentions grew 84% YoY , representing 9% of overall coverage.
o Key stories included Moderna cutting its forward guidance and GSK and Sanofi CEOs positioning themselves for conversations around efficacy and transparency ahead of RFK’s potential appointment.
AI again drew large live crowds and significant online discussion, with mentions growing 41% YoY. However, leaders and analysts are no longer wideeyed about AI’s potential and are instead more attuned to the patience and persistence required to see meaningful breakthroughs.
• 13% of the AI conversation featured NVIDIA, who led a standing-room only, day one presentation after presenting last year on day four.
• Two leading venture capital firms announced programs to further AI-based healthcare tools, indicating continued interest in nascent AI technologies.
• After rising 46% in 2024, mentions of “digital health” outside of AI fell 4% in 2025. Jonathan Bush, former CEO of athenahealth, predicted a ‘sink or swim’ year for digital health companies, stating "I think it's going to be a shakedown year, [and we’re] going to see a lot of business engineering”
Other , & emerging, themes:
Obesity and Diabetes:
GLP-1s continued to drive discussion, however, saw just a 75% increase in mentions YoY compared to the over 3,000% increase from 2023 to 2024.
o No longer the industry’s freshest wonder, the dynamic is now shifting to focus on new routes of administration (oral) and reducing side effects.
Women’s Health:
Women’s health entered the conversation driven by Dr. Jill Biden’s keynote address during a Fierce Pharma event, underscoring the need for more women-focused research, specifically in breast cancer and menopause.
o The topic grew 40% YoY, but remains niche at just 2% in overall share of voice during JPM.
Security:
In the wake of the UnitedHealthcare shooting, this year saw a sharp rise in both protest activity and security presence – 8% of coverage mentioned protesters and/or increased security.
YoY Conversation Volume:
Online conversations regarding JPM grew 23% YoY.
o While news volume grew 54% from 2024, mentions on X (Twitter) fell 28% as social conversations migrated to other platforms, specifically TikTok and BlueSky.
Therapeutic Area
• Similar to the last two years at JPM, oncology continues to be the most-discussed therapeutic area; however, discussion around ADCs, a hot topic in 2024, fell 5% this year
• Buoyed by J&J's acquisition of Intra-Cellular, neurology saw the highest jump in mentions YoY, rising 253%.
• Cell and gene therapy – despite not seeing significant engagement compared to other TAs – continued to drive conversation, growing 116% YoY.
The above graph shows online news and social conversations across disease and therapeutic areas during JPM. The X-axis represents mention volume, the Y-axis represents reach, and bubble size reflects engagement levels.