In other healthcare news, Recursion announced a new generative AI platform to speed up drug discovery. Health AI startup Nabla is moving from OpenAI to open source, and 3T Biosciences entered a second agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim to develop new cancer immunotherapies. Meanwhile, MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, which is developing MDMA-assisted therapy, is rebranding to Lykos Therapeutics and has announced $100 million in total funding.
Key takeaways:
- The J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference featured major acquisition announcements, including Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics for $680 million, Johnson & Johnson's $2 billion acquisition of Ambrx, and GSK's acquisition of Aiolos Bio for a potential total payout of $1.4 billion.
- There is a growing interest in the use of artificial intelligence in accelerating drug discovery, with companies like Nvidia and Teva leading the way in developing AI tools for healthcare.
- The highest number of Americans ever signed up for Obamacare health insurance plans starting in 2024, but the program's record could be undermined by the millions of low-income Americans who have lost Medicaid coverage in recent months due to bureaucratic issues.
- Recursion, a Utah-based pharmaceutical company, has trained a large language model to enable scientists to tap into dozens of machine learning models at once, potentially saving them time during drug development.