The Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Sq. resort hosted this 12 months’s JPMorgan Healthcare Convention — the primary because the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. (Darius Tahir/KHN)
Darius Tahir/KHN
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Darius Tahir/KHN
The Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Sq. resort hosted this 12 months’s JPMorgan Healthcare Convention — the primary because the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. (Darius Tahir/KHN)
Darius Tahir/KHN
SAN FRANCISCO — Well being care’s enterprise class returned to its San Francisco sanctuary final week for JPMorgan’s annual well being care confab, on the gilded Westin St. Francis resort on Union Sq.. After a two-year pandemic pause, the temper among the many executives, bankers and startup founders in attendance had the aura of a reunion — as they gossiped about promotions, work-from-home routines, who’s getting what investments. Dressed of their capitalist greatest — starting from brilliant-blue or pastel-purple blazers to puffy-coat stylish — they thronged to large events held in artwork galleries and eating places.
However the occasion was tinged with new anxiousness: Would the massive cash invested in well being care as a consequence of COVID-19 proceed to stream? Would buyers ask to see outcomes — which means earnings — fairly than simply cool concepts?
The buzzy convention had simply as many phrases about earnings as about sufferers. The principally maskless crowd spoke English, French, Japanese — and, after all, cash.
Apart from the company and funding varieties, attendees routinely noticed stunning characters — like celeb physician Mehmet Oz, recent off his Senate loss, holding court docket within the foyer on Jan. 10.
If the vibe within the resort’s congested halls was upbeat — or, not less than, cheery — beneath there was a frisson of hysteria as all had been conscious that the well being care enterprise bonanza appears to be like to be slowing down.
The convention began with a sidewalk protest of pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences, whose medication combating HIV and hepatitis C are fabulously efficient — and fabulously costly. Throughout the pandemic, Congress for the primary time has arrange a plan to permit Medicare to barter U.S. drug costs, that are by far the very best on the earth. In a press release, firm spokesperson Catherine Cantone stated Gilead is the most important personal funder of HIV packages within the U.S., including, “Gilead’s function in ending the HIV and hepatitis epidemics is to find, develop, and guarantee entry to our life-saving medicines.”
‘A tough 12 months’
Then there’s the financial atmosphere, which is popping treacherous. Journalists at monetary publication Bloomberg identified a scarcity of thrilling offers. Startup executives — who beforehand discovered hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in investments straightforward to come back by — appeared obligated to indicate ends in their impromptu pitches in bars and low retailers. Enterprise executives of all stripes promised they both presently made earnings or had been about to … quickly.
“I believe it is a difficult 12 months,” stated Hemant Taneja, CEO of the enterprise capital agency Normal Catalyst, throughout one panel. He instructed that giant swaths of well being tech startups had been overvalued and that their shoppers will probably be extra concerned about whether or not they’re truly offering helpful providers.
The brand new message from potential buyers was clear. “The concept you can develop and never be worthwhile is lifeless, gone,” stated Dr. Jon Cohen, CEO of the psychological well being startup Talkspace, in an interview.
Some tried to have a good time each monetary and humanitarian success. BioNTech co-founder Uğur Şahin was interrupted by applause throughout a presentation because the developer, with Pfizer, of the mRNA vaccine recounted the photographs’ function in combating the pandemic. And that was earlier than he touted his firm’s function in decreasing infectious illness, saving lives, and assembly world well being wants for tuberculosis and malaria.
The dialog later turned to the pricing of his firm’s flagship vaccine — which it is jockeying to set at greater than $100 a dose, up from a mean authorities buy worth of $20.69. 100 bucks is a good worth contemplating the “well being economics,” BioNTech’s chief technique officer, Ryan Richardson, argued: the hospitalizations and severe outcomes averted.
A mind-bending remark
There was some cognitive dissonance on the convention. Take into account drugstore big CVS — which is steadily increasing past its retail roots into medical health insurance and first care. CVS Well being CEO Karen Lynch stated that as a part of its well being enterprise the corporate is all of the elements that underlie being effectively. “Well being is not simply in regards to the engagement with the supplier; it is about all the opposite elements — together with housing and vitamin,” she stated. Left unaddressed was the sight usually greeting CVS clients upon coming into a retailer: sweet, chips, and different processed meals.
For critics, it was a mind-bending remark. “The final I heard, CVS was a for-profit firm, not a social welfare company,” stated Marion Nestle, a researcher who’s a longtime critic of the meals business. “It sells junk meals that make folks sick and medicines to deal with these sicknesses. How’s that for a nifty enterprise mannequin!”
CVS spokesperson Ethan Slavin supplied a really totally different imaginative and prescient, one wherein CVS is in search of to be a premier well being and wellness vacation spot. “We’re all the time evolving our meals and beverage assortment to offer more healthy, on-trend merchandise.” It’s also supporting packages to bolster meals availability in underserved areas, he added.
Some techies encountered new skepticism about “synthetic intelligence.” Ginkgo Bioworks co-founder Jason Kelly famous throughout his presentation that folks on the convention heard a lot about synthetic intelligence through the conferences, “they wish to cease listening to it.” (Ginkgo’s AI, used to help pharmaceutical and biotech analysis, he stated, was totally different than the remainder.)
One surgeon, Dr. Rajesh Aggarwal, discovered conversations with financiers in regards to the stealth startup he based, which focuses on metabolic well being, had been centered on silver bullets. “Inform me if I make investments on this, I am going to 10x” the outlay, he stated, paraphrasing the bankers. Many, he stated, wished to “do some good as effectively” for sufferers.
Aggarwal felt the buyers had been searching for easy options to well being issues. And one merchandise match that invoice: a brand new class of medicine — GLP-1 agonists, a sort of treatment that aids in weight reduction however will seemingly must be taken for lengthy durations. Some analysts are projecting these medication will probably be price $50 billion. The bankers, Aggarwal felt, aren’t “excited about well being care,” they’re “excited about the {dollars} connected to the tablet.”
KHN (Kaiser Well being Information) is a nationwide, editorially unbiased program of the Kaiser Household Basis.
