J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference 2027: The Dealmaker’s Guide to JPM Week

What Is the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference?

The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is the largest and most closely watched investor conference in healthcare. Every January, public and private drugmakers, biotechs, medtech companies and service providers present their strategy to an audience of investors, bankers and business-development teams in San Francisco. The 45th edition runs January 11–14, 2027, and like every edition before it, it is by invitation only.

The event began in 1983, when the investment bank Hambrecht & Quist hosted a small January meeting for a handful of young biotechnology companies. Hambrecht & Quist was later acquired by Chase Manhattan, which merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2000, and the conference has carried the J.P. Morgan name ever since. Its home is the Westin St. Francis on Union Square. Scale has grown with the industry: Healthcare Dive reported as many as 9,000 attendees across 450 public and private companies in 2020, and attendance at the 2026 edition was again reported above 8,000.

For a dealmaker, the conference is less a set of presentations than the anchor of the most concentrated week of meetings in the industry calendar. Almost every large pharma business-development team, most specialist life-sciences investors and a growing number of Asian drugmakers are in the same few blocks of San Francisco at the same time. That density is what makes the week valuable.

JPM 2027 Dates and the JPM Week Calendar

The conference is the center of gravity, but the week around it is where most people actually spend their time. The table below lists the main events of JPM Week 2027 with the dates their organizers have published. Side-event schedules can shift, so confirm with each organizer before you book travel.

On top of these sit hundreds of private receptions, investor dinners and panels hosted by banks, law firms, venture funds, regional trade agencies and consultancies. None of them appear on a single official calendar, which is why experienced teams treat the week as a scheduling project that starts months ahead.

For the rest of the year’s partnering meetings and scientific congresses, see our 2027 biotech and pharma conference calendar.

What Happens Inside the Conference

Inside the Westin St. Francis, the format is simple. Companies give short presentations to investors, usually followed by a separate question-and-answer breakout, and management teams spend the rest of their time in back-to-back investor meetings. Presenters range from the largest pharma groups to private start-ups.

Three things make those presentations matter beyond the room:

• Guidance and preliminary numbers. Many companies use their slot to give preliminary full-year results or set guidance for the new year, which moves share prices during the week.
• Strategy signals. Big pharma chief executives use JPM to describe their appetite for deals, the therapeutic areas they want to grow and the patent cliffs they need to fill. For a seller, that is the clearest public read of who is buying what in the year ahead.
• Deal timing. Companies like to announce acquisitions and licensing agreements on the Monday or Tuesday of JPM Week, when the whole industry is paying attention.

Where the Deals Get Done: Partnering Around JPM

Licensing and M&A conversations rarely start on the conference floor. They start in scheduled 30-minute meetings in hotel suites, partnering rooms and lobbies across Union Square and SoMa. Four channels carry most of that traffic.

• BIO Partnering at JPM Week. BIO runs a company-to-company meeting system for the week and returns to the San Francisco Marriott Marquis for 2027. Meetings can be held in BIO’s space, in your own suite or virtually. At JPM Week 2026 the system had more than 2,400 participants from 1,600 companies, including over 600 investors. BIO is not affiliated with J.P. Morgan and cannot provide conference invitations.
• Biotech Showcase. Run by Informa Connect, it gives emerging biotechs a stage to present to investors and partners, January 11–13, 2027, with digital partnering a week later.
• RESI JPM. Life Science Nation’s event focuses on early-stage companies raising capital, matching them with investors whose mandates fit.
• Direct outreach and advisor introductions. The most valuable meetings often never touch a partnering system: they come from warm introductions by bankers, advisors and investors who know the counterparty is in town.

Deals almost never sign during JPM Week. What the week produces is the first or second meeting, a signed confidentiality agreement and access to a data room, which then turns into diligence and a term sheet in the following months. Our guide to biotech partnership structures explains what those conversations can turn into.

The Deals JPM Week Produces

Because the industry is watching, companies cluster announcements into the opening days. The last two editions show how the mix is shifting from large mergers toward licensing.

JPM 2026 was notable for what did not happen. GlobalData reported that industry experts at the conference noted the absence of the large pharma mergers usually expected that week. The headline pharma deal was a license, not an acquisition, and it was for a molecule discovered in China. AbbVie took rights to RC148 outside Greater China and agreed to pay tiered, double-digit royalties; RemeGen kept its home market. That structure, regional rights plus large milestones, is now the standard template for China-sourced assets. We cover the class in our PD-1/VEGF bispecific landscape, and the year’s wider deal flow in our 2026 pharma deal tracker.

China at JPM: From Side Rooms to the Main Stage

Chinese drugmakers have moved from the edges of JPM Week to its center. According to Business France, more than 20 Chinese companies presented at JPM 2026, among them BeiGene (now BeOne Medicines), Akeso, Zai Lab, Henlius, Kelun-Biotech and RemeGen. Evaluate’s coverage singled out Hengrui, which reported more than $3.2 billion in sales through the third quarter of 2025, 21 NDA or BLA approvals and $16 billion in out-licensing deals, including its partnership with GSK.

The deal data explains the attention. GlobalData found that in 2025, licensing agreements in which US companies in-licensed an innovative drug from China reached almost 50%, a trend it expected to continue into 2026. Our own China Out-Licensing Report 2026 puts 2025 China out-licensing at a record of roughly $136 billion in total deal value. Around the main conference, China-focused asset showcases have become a fixture: in 2026, BIOSeedin’s China Asset Showcase on January 11 featured 18 roadshows by Chinese biotechs in bispecifics, ADCs and molecular glues.

For Western buyers, that makes JPM Week the most efficient week of the year to meet Chinese originators in person. For Chinese companies, it is the week when the buyers who will decide on ex-China rights are all within walking distance. Both sides gain from arriving with a clear view of what a cross-border deal should look like, which is the subject of our guide to in-licensing biotech assets from China.

How to Get Meetings Without an Invitation

Most people who do business during JPM Week never enter the conference itself. If you do not have an invitation, the practical route is straightforward:

1. Register for a partnering system. BIO Partnering is open to qualified companies whether or not they attend any specific event, and it lets you request meetings with pharma BD teams and investors who are in town.
2. Book your own meeting space. A suite or a reserved meeting room near Union Square turns you from a visitor into a host. Lobby meetings work, but they are noisy and hard to schedule back to back.
3. Present where you fit. Early-stage companies raising capital get more from RESI or Biotech Showcase than from chasing meetings with large pharma.
4. Use introductions. A warm introduction from a banker, investor or advisor converts into a meeting far more often than a cold request through a portal.
5. Go to the right receptions. Bank, law-firm and regional receptions are where many second meetings get arranged. Be selective; the best evenings are often invitation-only too.

A Preparation Timeline for JPM 2027

Teams that get the most from JPM Week treat it as a three-month project, not a trip. This is the timeline we use with clients preparing for partnering meetings in San Francisco.

Two documents decide whether a first meeting becomes a second. The first is a valuation range you can defend; our rNPV valuation guide shows how buyers build theirs. The second is a realistic view of deal terms, set out in our cross-border licensing term sheet guide. Expect buyers to ask diligence questions early, so it pays to review the pharma due diligence checklist before you fly.

For US and Bay Area Biotechs: Partnering With Asia at JPM

For a Bay Area biotech, JPM is a home game. The industry flies to San Francisco, which makes it the cheapest week of the year to meet partners from Japan, Korea and China who rarely travel to the US together at any other time. The Bay Area’s own scale showed up at JPM 2026: Penumbra, the Alameda-based device maker, was the subject of the week’s largest acquisition.

The opportunity many US biotechs underuse is regional licensing. Licensing Greater China, Japan or Korea rights to a regional partner can bring in upfront cash and local development funding without giving up the US and Europe. Done well, it is non-dilutive capital and an acceleration of the global program at the same time. Done badly, it can complicate a later global deal, so the territory split, data-sharing rights and manufacturing terms need care. We explain the Japanese route in our Japan market entry guide and the Chinese one in our NMPA approval process guide. Our out-licensing team runs these processes for US biotechs during JPM Week and throughout the year.

For Chinese Biotechs: Making the Trip Pay Off

Chinese companies now arrive at JPM Week with stronger data than ever, but the questions from Western buyers are consistent. Will the clinical data hold up with the FDA? Is there a plan for a multi-regional trial? What does the manufacturing and supply chain look like under the BIOSECURE Act? Who owns which rights, and is the company open to a NewCo structure?

Companies that answer those questions in the first meeting move to diligence. Those that answer them in the third meeting usually lose momentum to the next asset on the buyer’s list. Bring a Western-standard data package, a clear territory proposal and a team member who can discuss regulatory strategy in detail.

Common JPM Week Mistakes

• Starting in December. By then the best pharma BD calendars are full and the hotels near Union Square are booked.
• Meeting everyone. Thirty unfocused meetings produce less than ten well-targeted ones with buyers whose stated priorities match your asset.
• A deck built for investors, used with pharma. Pharma BD teams want differentiation, data, competitive position and the rights on offer; investors want the financing story. Bring both versions.
• No clear ask. Every meeting should end with a defined next step: a confidentiality agreement, a data request or a follow-up date.
• Slow follow-up. The window after JPM Week is short. Momentum fades within two weeks as teams return to their internal reviews.

The Bottom Line

The 45th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference runs January 11–14, 2027 in San Francisco. The conference is invitation-only, but JPM Week is open to anyone prepared to plan: partnering systems, showcases, meeting space and introductions give every serious biotech and buyer access to the people who matter. The week sets the deal tone for the year, and in 2026 that tone was licensing, much of it China-sourced, rather than mega-mergers.

If you are taking an asset to JPM Week, whether to license Asian rights from the US or to find a Western partner for a Chinese molecule, and want the meetings, the valuation and the term sheet prepared before you land, talk to our team.