Licensing deals and partnerships carried the day during another hectic J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Pfizer racked up its third deal of the week in a cancer collaboration with Dren Bio.

With up to $100m from Abingworth and a recent $75m FOPO, CymaBay has runway to await pivotal data in primary biliary cholangitis in 2023 for seladelpar, after the candidate failed in NASH. It sees a significant market opportunity in the second-line setting cornered by Intercept.

Despite no mega-deals (yet), the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference’s first day brings the usual flurry of deals, including a pair of tie-ups each for Bristol and Pfizer. BioNTech moves into cancer with Crescendo.

Firm’s annual biopharma firepower report notes there were no mega-mergers in 2021 and the conditions continue to make smaller deals and partnerships a better risk proposition.

Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.

Building on an alliance dating back to 2016, Exscientia and Sanofi will use artificial intelligence and insights gleaned from patient tissue samples to seek out 15 novel therapies.