Biotech & Pharma Conferences 2027: The Dealmaker’s Calendar

The 2026–2027 Calendar at a Glance

This calendar runs from the next major meeting, BIO-Europe in November 2026, through the end of 2027. Dates come from each organizer’s published information. Where an organizer has not yet confirmed a date and it appears only in event directories, the table says so. Always confirm with the organizer before booking.

For the busiest single week on this list, our guide to the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and JPM Week covers the side events, the deals JPM produces and a preparation timeline.

Two Kinds of Conference

The biotech calendar mixes two very different kinds of event, and a business-development plan needs both.

• Partnering and investor meetings exist to schedule one-on-one meetings. JPM Week, BIO-Europe, BIO-Europe Spring, the BIO International Convention and ChinaBio all run partnering systems that let registered companies request and book 30-minute meetings. This is where licensing conversations and financing rounds start.
• Scientific congresses such as ASCO, AACR, ESMO, ASH and ADA exist to present data. They are not built for partnering, but they are where clinical results are released, and those results decide which assets buyers chase and what they are willing to pay.

The 2027 Deal Year, Quarter by Quarter

First quarter: setting the agenda. JPM Week in January opens the year. Big pharma chief executives describe the therapeutic areas and patent cliffs they need to address, and deals signed in the closing weeks of the previous year are often announced in the opening days. The rest of the quarter is follow-up: confidentiality agreements, data rooms and diligence calls with the counterparties met in San Francisco.

Second quarter: the busiest stretch. AACR and BIO-Europe Spring in early April, Swiss Biotech Day and ChinaBio at the end of April, then ASCO, the BIO International Convention and ADA in June. Early data presented at AACR feeds the partnering conversations in Lyon and Shanghai; late-stage data at ASCO and ADA shapes the deals discussed at BIO. Many teams plan to have a term sheet in negotiation by the end of June.

Third quarter: execution. July and August are quieter for conferences, with BIO Asia–Taiwan at the end of July, and are often when term sheets turn into definitive agreements. ESMO in September restarts the data cycle for oncology.

Fourth quarter: the run-in to JPM. BioJapan in October, BIO-Europe in November and ASH in December fill the autumn, while teams book hotels, register for partnering systems and request meetings for the next JPM Week. Deals that need to close within the calendar year, for budget or reporting reasons, cluster in December.

The Partnering Meetings: Where Deals Start

JPM Week (January, San Francisco). The densest week of the year. The 45th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference runs January 11–14, 2027 and is invitation-only, but BIO Partnering and Biotech Showcase around it are open to registered participants. Big pharma uses the week to set out its priorities and often to announce deals.

BIO-Europe (November) and BIO-Europe Spring. Run by EBD Group, part of Informa, these are Europe’s main partnering meetings. The 2026 edition of BIO-Europe runs November 9–11 in Cologne and draws more than 5,800 people from over 3,200 companies in more than 60 countries. BIO-Europe Spring 2027 moves to Lyon on April 5–7, with more than 3,700 attendees from 51 countries at its recent editions. Both use the partneringONE system, which lets attendees request meetings before and during the event.

BIO International Convention (June). The Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s annual convention moves to Philadelphia for June 7–10, 2027. It combines a large partnering system with policy sessions, so it is the place to hear where US regulation, drug pricing and trade policy are heading, as well as to meet partners from around the world.

Swiss Biotech Day (April, Basel). A two-day meeting in one of Europe’s densest pharma clusters, listed for April 26–27, 2027. It is a useful entry point to the Swiss ecosystem around Basel and Zurich.

How Partnering Systems Work

Every major partnering meeting runs on the same basic mechanism. Registered delegates build a company profile, browse other attendees, send meeting requests, accept or decline requests they receive, and the system books mutually convenient 30-minute slots in a partnering area or in the delegates’ own meeting rooms. BIO describes its system as working company to company, while EBD Group’s partneringONE lets attendees search for partners and request meetings both before and during the event. The practical lesson is the same everywhere: the best counterparties fill their calendars early, so profiles and requests should go out as soon as each system opens.

The Scientific Congresses: Where Valuations Move

• AACR Annual Meeting (April 2–7, 2027, Orlando). The American Association for Cancer Research meeting is the showcase for early science and first clinical data. For buyers scouting new modalities and targets, it is the earliest look at the next wave of cancer assets.
• ASCO Annual Meeting (June 4–8, 2027, Chicago). The largest clinical oncology meeting, where late-stage and registrational data are presented. ASCO readouts are among the most closely watched inputs to oncology licensing and M&A.
• ESMO Congress (autumn). Europe’s largest oncology congress, listed for September 17–21, 2027 in Barcelona. It is a frequent venue for major readouts from European and Asian companies.
• ASH Annual Meeting (December 12–15, 2026, New Orleans). The American Society of Hematology meeting is the key venue for blood cancers and much of the cell therapy field.
• ADA Scientific Sessions (June 18–21, 2027, Washington, D.C.). The American Diabetes Association meeting, with more than 12,000 researchers and clinicians each year, has become a central event for obesity and incretin drugs. Our GLP-1 licensing landscape covers that deal market.

Asia-Pacific and Cross-Border Meetings

Cross-border dealmaking has its own circuit. The ChinaBio Partnering Forum, run by Informa, is the dedicated meeting for deals between Chinese companies and international partners. The 2027 edition runs April 27–29 at the Shanghai International Convention Center, with digital partnering on May 6–7, and it brings together more than 1,800 attendees from over 500 companies in 30 countries.

BIO Asia–Taiwan in Taipei, listed for July 28–31, 2027, combines a regional partnering forum with a large exhibition. BioJapan in Yokohama each October is the main partnering meeting for Japanese pharma, whose business development teams are active in-licensers of Western and Chinese assets. Our Japan market entry guide explains why Japanese partners matter for regional rights.

The bigger shift is that Chinese companies no longer stay on their own circuit. More than 20 Chinese companies presented at JPM 2026, and Chinese originators are now among the most sought-after counterparties at BIO-Europe and the BIO International Convention. Our China Out-Licensing Report 2026 tracks the deals those meetings produce.

Meeting Asian Partners: What Changes

A partnering meeting with a Chinese, Japanese or Korean company follows the same 30-minute format as any other, but the path from first meeting to term sheet differs in ways that are worth planning for.

• Decision-makers are often not in the first meeting. Business-development teams at large Asian companies typically screen opportunities and report to an internal committee. Ask early who decides, what the internal review process is and what that committee will need to see.
• Send materials in advance. Japanese and Korean teams in particular prefer to review a detailed non-confidential package before meeting, so the meeting itself can go deeper. A short teaser sent the week before is rarely wasted.
• Be precise about territory. Regional rights deals depend on exactly which territories are included (for example, whether Greater China covers Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), and on what development and data-sharing obligations come with them.
• Plan the regulatory path together. A regional partner will ask how your data supports approval in its market, whether through bridging studies, participation in a multi-regional trial or local trials. Our NMPA approval process guide covers the Chinese route.
• Follow up in the partner’s rhythm. Internal reviews can take several weeks. Agree a timeline for the next step at the end of each meeting rather than waiting for a reply.

For Chinese companies meeting Western buyers, the mirror image applies: buyers want a clear territory proposal, a Western-standard data package, a view on FDA requirements and an answer on supply-chain exposure under the BIOSECURE Act before they will invest diligence time.

Investor Conferences

Alongside the open events, the large investment banks run their own healthcare conferences through the year. They are invitation-only, built around presentations and one-on-one meetings between listed companies and institutional investors, and access usually comes through the bank’s coverage team. Private companies raising late-stage rounds or preparing for an IPO increasingly attend too. For how banks fit into a biotech’s financing and M&A path, see our biotech investment banking guide.

Early-stage companies have a different set of options. RESI, which runs alongside JPM Week, and Biotech Showcase are built to match early-stage companies with investors whose mandates fit, and most regional life-sciences clusters run their own investor days.

2027 Clashes and Crunch Points

Three overlaps will shape how business-development teams plan 2027.

1. Early April. AACR in Orlando (April 2–7) overlaps BIO-Europe Spring in Lyon (April 5–7). Oncology scouting teams will be in Florida while European partnering runs in France, so larger teams need to split and smaller ones need to choose.
2. Late April. Swiss Biotech Day in Basel (April 26–27) runs straight into ChinaBio in Shanghai (April 27–29). Travel between them in time for the start of ChinaBio is not realistic, so pick one or send separate people.
3. Early June. ASCO in Chicago (June 4–8) overlaps the BIO International Convention in Philadelphia (June 7–10) on June 7–8. Oncology teams can cover the first days of ASCO and fly to Philadelphia, but meetings at BIO on June 7–8 will compete with the end of ASCO.

The practical answer is to plan the year as a whole: decide which two or three meetings matter most for your asset or your search, commit the senior team to those, and use digital partnering days after BIO-Europe, BIO-Europe Spring and ChinaBio to recover the meetings you could not attend in person.

Which Conferences Fit Your Goal

For a US biotech, licensing Asian rights to a regional partner is one of the most underused sources of non-dilutive capital, and the meetings above are where those partners can be found. Our out-licensing team runs those processes. For a Chinese company looking for a Western partner, our guide to in-licensing from China shows what buyers will ask for.

Who to Send, and How Many

The right team depends on the meeting, not the event. A pharma business-development team usually wants to meet someone who can discuss the science in depth and someone who can discuss terms. For a biotech, that typically means the chief executive or chief business officer plus a scientific or clinical lead for the priority meetings, with the business-development team covering the rest.

Sending more people lets a company run parallel meetings, which matters at JPM Week and BIO, where good counterparties are booked in back-to-back 30-minute slots. At smaller and regional meetings, one or two senior people are often enough. When budget forces a choice, put the senior team at the two or three meetings where your highest-priority counterparties will be, and cover the rest through digital partnering and follow-up calls.

Making the Meetings Count

• Register early. Partnering systems open weeks before each event, and the most sought-after pharma BD teams fill their calendars first.
• Target, do not broadcast. Ten well-chosen meetings with buyers whose priorities match your asset beat forty generic ones.
• Bring the right materials. A non-confidential deck, a one-page teaser, a confidentiality agreement ready to sign and a defensible value range, built with the methods in our rNPV valuation guide.
• Use digital partnering days. BIO-Europe, BIO-Europe Spring and ChinaBio all add online partnering days after the in-person event. They are a cheap way to recover meetings lost to a clash or to reach counterparties who did not travel.
• Follow up fast. Send follow-ups within 48 hours and move promising conversations to a confidentiality agreement and data room while interest is high.

The Bottom Line

The biotech deal year runs on a predictable calendar: BIO-Europe in November, JPM Week in January, a crowded April with AACR, BIO-Europe Spring and ChinaBio, and a crowded June with ASCO and BIO. Partnering meetings start the conversations; scientific congresses set the prices. The teams that get the most from the year pick their meetings by goal, plan around the 2027 clashes, and prepare months ahead.

If you want help deciding where to be in 2027, and arriving with the right meetings already booked, talk to our team.