Daily notebook from the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference: Small and mid-size companies take the stage to lay out their guidance for the year, while big pharma is pushed on strategy and business development. Updates from GSK, Mirati, Sarepta, Amgen and US FDA commissioner Robert Califf.

The company has admitted making mistakes in its R&D, but must now convince investors that its new multi-modality approach will pay off.

During Q2, biopharma merger and acquisition value reached $25.4bn and drew in $27.3bn in potential deal value from alliances. Device company M&A values reached $2.7bn, while in vitro diagnostic firms and research tools players completed M&A activity that totaled $534.3m.

Cancer deals involving Junshi/Wigen, Allist/Octimet, Yufan/Abound, Takeda/Presage, Daiichi Sankyo/AnHeart, LegoChem/Harbour Biomed, plus a stem cell partnership and a lysosomal storage disorder agreement.