The pulse from the 2025 JPM Healthcare Conference

Just wrapped up an energizing JPM Conference! Here are some of the key themes that stood out to me this year:

• 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽 𝗱𝗲𝘃 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘇𝘆: The conference buzzed with exploratory M&A talks. We’re seeing PE-backed and late-stage, VC-backed private companies exploring options, while some struggling public companies contemplate going private and spinning off assets. Even Big Tech is sniffing around for opportunities to expand their footprint in healthcare.

• 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗜𝗣𝗢𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗿: After a dry spell, there’s a glimmer of optimism. Speculation is mounting about which companies will go public first (e.g., Hinge? Omada?) as the market is eager for fresh comparables to guide valuations and investment strategies.

• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: If 2024 was about experimentation, 2025 will be the year of commercialization: AI products are expected to move from pilots to more scaled deployments. A heathy level of optimism and excitement remains for new solutions, but buyers are beginning to scrutinize outcomes and ROI more. It's yet to be seen if new AI companies can charge health systems and payers for their agents at the full value of labor, though we are starting to see real examples of it in life sciences.

• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝘀: To avoid a race to the bottom and capture more value, companies in the clinical documentation and scribing space are racing to build more comprehensive solutions, extending their reach both upstream and downstream into broader clinical and administrative workflows. Differentiation is key.

• 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 & 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵: The “Don’t Die” documentary and funding announcements from companies like Eternal refueled excitement about longevity and holistic health. We had lots of conversations around the food-as-medicine movement as well as cheaper, more comprehensive, and more accessible testing & screening options that can help shift the care paradigm from treatment to prevention.

• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁: The pronounced security presence was impossible to miss. I got within inches of mistakenly making a wrong entrance to one of the marquis hotels and was not so politely warned to try a different one (ha!). Also, large insurers who historically have come to the conference were absent this year, begging the question as to the real reasons why.

As always, it was great to end the conference over dinner with our fellow healthcare & life science investors in the OMERS family (OMERS Private Equity, Oxford Properties Group, OMERS Life Sciences, and OMERS Capital Markets). We had so much to talk about and were having so much fun that we forgot to take a picture! 🙈 cc: Michael Yang Teresa Lee James McGlynn Tycho Suter Hakim Ben Aissa, CFA Geoff Clark Rob Missere, CFA Bernhard Wu