“They need to find a bigger venue,” an attendee mutters as they pull their coat tight and brave the British rain to find one of the myriad overflow venues for the Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2024.
The event, which until last year had been a relatively cozy affair, has seemingly become a victim of its own success. In response to a surge in attendees, investment bank Jefferies has expanded the conference beyond the confines of the original venue—the century-old Waldorf Hotel—to also encompass a number of other buildings around London’s tourist-friendly theater district (to give you a sense of the upheaval, Fierce Biotech is writing this from the relocated press room in a Brazilian steak house).
But a cursory look at the various add-on venues show why the last-minute shakeup was necessary. Whether it’s a Victorian pub, the more modern ME London hotel, an upmarket Italian bistro or the aforementioned steakhouse, every table is filled with biotech execs, financiers and various other industry affiliates getting down to business.
So what’s turned Jefferies into one of the most in-demand biopharma events of 2024? Now in its 15th year, the self-proclaimed “largest healthcare-dedicated conference in Europe” is hardly a new arrival on the calendar. Last year’s event crammed 3,500 attendees into the Waldorf and, while the organizers were unable to provide Fierce with an updated attendance figure for this year, it's clearly a far bigger crowd.
“Some have called it the J.P. Morgan of Europe,” Genmab’s CFO Anthony Pagano told Fierce, referring to the industrial-scale pharma gathering that hits San Francisco every January.
Genmab has a foot in both Denmark and the U.S., meaning the Darzalex-maker has “always prioritized” Jefferies as a key event.
“There's a great opportunity to meet with both U.S. as well as very equally important European and other investors,” Pagano told Fierce in one of the packed side venues.
He suggested that one potential reason for the conference’s increased popularity is the decrease of “geographic differentiation” by biopharmas, which increasingly have adopted a similar transatlantic mindset to Genmab.
Roel Meers, a partner in the corporate finance practice group of Baker McKenzie's Brussels office, says the law firm has long seen Jefferies as “a key event on the healthcare and biotech calendar in Europe.”
“With its convenient European time zone, shorter travel time and unparalleled networking opportunities, Jefferies complements the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco by providing a similar platform for critical investor and company interactions,” Meers told Fierce.
“Also, market circumstances continue to remain challenging, particularly in the public markets, making these conferences essential for biotech companies navigating cash runway pressures,” he adds.
Caroline Loew, Ph.D., CEO of Mural Oncology, is a newbie to the Jefferies conference and reaches for the J.P. Morgan comparison straight away.
“The vibe, the energy—it's very like that,” she told Fierce. “Normally, the conferences these banks run over the course of the year are predominantly attended by investors and no people from pharma companies are there.”
“Here, we’ve had lots of outreach from pharma companies,” added Loew, who this week was named one of 2024’s Fiercest Women In Life Sciences. “My guess is that a lot of companies are treating it as sort of a pre-J.P. Morgan.”
Today, the biggest presentations have been moved to the ME hotel, where Big Pharma execs kicked off proceedings by drilling down into their BD strategies. They included Bristol Myers Squibb CFO David Elkins, who spelled out how the drugmaker’s $1.5 billion cost-savings initiative this year will free up funds to invest into programs like the recently approved schizophrenia therapy Cobenfy and the radiopharmaceuticals acquired along with RayzeBio.
One shadow cast over proceedings was the uncertainty about what the incoming U.S. administration will mean for the sector. However, Elkins was sanguine, pointing to the industry’s “resilience.”
“It doesn't matter who’s in office, we'll continue to work with them,” the CFO told attendees. “I think it's too soon to tell what the Trump administration’s policies and priorities will be, but we're going to fully engage with them on those.”
Despite the uncertainty, the conference is kicking off with a growing sense that the IPO window could be reopening. Recent months have seen a steady trickle of biotech public listings, and Jefferies’ own survey of around 500 investors and other “senior voices from the healthcare sector” revealed that 64% expect a more active IPO pipeline next year, up from less than half of respondents last time.
So was this enthusiasm reflected by the delegates this afternoon? I’m afraid Fierce can’t tell you—the Waldorf hotel was so packed that no one else was able to get back in after lunchtime. Maybe it is time to look into that bigger venue after all…