Lilly is planning for growth even beyond the loss of patent protection for Trulicity in 2027. In addition to internal R&D, Smiley said a third of new drugs will come from business development. 

Ying Huang was named CEO as his predecessor came under investigation in China and as partner Janssen was getting closer to seeking US FDA approval for its lead CAR-T therapy.

Public Company Edition: 2020 started with two $200m-plus initial public offerings plus five health care-focused special purpose acquisition corporations IPOs. Also, a Pfizer initiative backs three public companies, Fate’s $432m offering led recent FOPOs and Biocon Biologics receives more investment. 

Private Company Edition: Last year set a high bar for venture capital, but this year is starting strong. Recent VC mega-deals include $500m for EQRx and $230m-plus for Tessera Therapeutics. Also, BioGeneration Ventures closed a €140m ($170.2m) fund and NewAmsterdam raised a $196m series A.

CEO Amit Munshi told the J.P. Morgan meeting the company will double the size of its clinical-stage cardiovascular disease pipeline with the addition of temanogrel.

Lilly took a different path to positive results in Alzheimer’s with a smaller, biomarker-driven study to test the hypothesis that rapid, robust clearance of amyloid could slow disease progression, CEO David Ricks explains at J.P. Morgan.