Global pharmaceutical companies vow to boost investments

Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan at 2024 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference [Courtesy of Novartis]

Global pharmaceutical companies, including South Korean players, are expected to seek new growth engines that will be responsible for their businesses for the next 10 years based on accumulated capital.

During the 2024 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference that kicked off on Monday in San Francisco, the United States, Mike Gaito, global head of healthcare investment banking at J.P. Morgan & Co., said that the bio industry faced extreme challenges last year but it is gradually recovering to the pre-pandemic phase.

Gaito projected a rise in the number of mergers and acquisitions and aggressive investments related to drug development this year amid lower interest rates and market stabilization.

The annual conference, which is in its 42nd year, is the world’s largest biopharmaceutical event held in January every year.

Executives of big pharmaceutical companies including those of BMS and Novartis, stressed that they will use abundant cash to nurture next-generation growth engines.

Nine Korean companies have been invited to attend the conference that ends Thursday. They are Samsung Biologics, SK biopharmaceuticals, Yuhan, Kakao Healthcare, Lotte Biologics, Celltrion, Hanmi Pharmaceutical, SK bioscience, and GI Innovation.

Industry insiders noted that increased investments by global pharmaceutical companies will affect Korean companies as it will provide them with more opportunities in terms of open innovation for novel drug development and merger and acquisitions.