| Sponsored by  | | |  | Greetings from Day 3 of the 2023 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Programming note: The Readout will return to its regular schedule starting tomorrow morning, with a recap of the meeting that was.
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A quixotic conference continues. (Adam Feuerstein) How would you feel about 'JPM Week' moving to Miami? We ask because this week has brought a fresh round of Wall Street chatter about J.P. Morgan executives considering a relocation of their signature healthcare conference out of San Francisco to warmer — and glitzier — Miami.
Of course, speculating about the JPM confab pulling out of the cramped, antiquated Westin St. Francis hotel is one of biotech’s favorite parlor games. Every year, the same rumors fly, and every year, the bank says nope.
This year is different because it’s J.P. Morgan execs who are reportedly discussing whether to buy out the remaining years on the Westin contract so that the entire show can be moved to a nicer, cleaner, and more tax-friendly city. How serious are those internal conversations? Anyone’s guess. (But if you know, reach out!)
The only thing we’ve heard definitively is that a move wouldn’t happen for at least two years, so #JPM24 isn’t going anywhere. #JPM25? There could be a lot more sunshine. We might see George Yancopolous showing off his guns in a guayabera. Brad Loncar will still be wearing a tie.
We asked a J.P. Morgan spokesperson to spill all the secrets, but our request was politely declined. | George Yancopoulos isn't apologizing Regeneron entered JPM with negative headlines, partly because sales of its best-selling eye drug underperformed, and partly because its co-founder and chief scientist last month got testy with CNBC reporter Bertha Coombs onstage for her question about access to Alzheimer’s drugs.
STAT caught up with George Yancopoulos at the conference. He welcomed questions about the incident and acknowledged he could’ve handled things differently.
“I was triggered,” he said. “I could have tried to make my point better and of course we all believe in access and getting medicines to patients, otherwise I would not have devoted my life to trying to come up with medicines.”
Mostly, though, he doubled down. Coombs had asked how the U.S. will ensure equal access “when” there is a cure for Alzheimer’s. Yancopoulos, whose grandmother died of Alzheimer’s and who originally started Regeneron to regenerate neurons, told STAT it was dangerous to “trivialize” how difficult it will be to cure Alzheimer's, because it leads society to undervalue what needs to be done to pull it off — in terms of public funding, for example, or in incentives for drug development.
“The estimates are that in 20 years, we're going to have about 20 million people with Alzheimer's," he said. "And right now, there really is nothing on the horizon. I think that there's an enormous danger — an incalculable danger — for society to underestimate the difficulty and challenges with true innovation. So I don’t apologize, because even though I got skewered for it ... we need to understand that we need to do better.” | Sponsored insight by Amgen 5 ways biotech can help support patients and their communities As a company, Amgen’s mission is to serve patients, and while innovating new medicines may be at the core of what they do every day, staff are always excited for new ways to serve not only patients, but also the communities where they live and work. Learn more about how the people of Amgen came together in 2022 to help patients, families and communities live happier, healthier lives. | The race to sequence DNA accurately, quickly, and affordably heats up The cost of decoding a human genome has plummeted over the past couple of decades thanks to new sequencing technologies that work on increasingly high-powered (and high-cost) machines. But Element Biosciences is breaking that trend. The startup announced that its machine, small enough to fit on a lab benchtop and less expensive than Illumina’s high-end instruments, can now sequence a whole genome for $200.
It’s an announcement the company could have made months ago, writes STAT’s Jonathan Wosen. After all, Element’s sequencing chemistry hasn’t changed since it launched its instrument last March. But observers point out that waiting gave Element the chance to watch genomics rivals Ultima and Illumina make their own claims about planning to offer a $100 and $200 genome, respectively. Those companies have yet to make good on those plans, meaning that Element has, for now, leapfrogged ahead in the race to bring sequencing prices down.
Read more. | Akero targeting severe NASH with next study Akero Therapeutics is developing a drug called efruxifermin, or EFX, as a potential treatment for the fatty liver disease known as NASH. In September, EFX met the primary goals of a mid-stage clinical trial that involved participants with moderate NASH. On Wednesday, CEO Andrew Cheng said the company’s current mid-stage clinical trial is fully enrolled and results will be read out in the fourth quarter, most likely October.
The EFX study, called Symmetry, is one to watch because the participants are all diagnosed with liver cirrhosis due to NASH, which puts them on the severe end of the NASH diagnostic scale and at a significant risk of liver failure and death. Gilead Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Galmed, and Intercept Pharmaceuticals have all tested NASH drugs in this difficult-to-treat patient population without success.
Cheng hopes EFX will prove to be more successful, based on encouraging results from a small, proof-of-concept study in which 58% of NASH-cirrhotic patients achieved fibrosis improvement or NASH resolution. | More reads - HHS will seek more input on its new Medicare drug price negotiations, STAT
- Illumina to face EU fine of 10% of turnover over Grail deal, Reuters
- FDA scolds Sun Pharmaceutical for serious quality control problems at a key plant in India, STAT
- Biopharma’s bolt-on bonanza is set to continue, Evaluate Vantage
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