What is Daiichi Sankyo’s Strategy for Preparing for the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference?

Pharmaceutical Executive: What was Daiichi Sankyo's strategy for preparing for the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference?
Ken Keller: There are two aspects. The first is getting to talk to people and sharing Daiichi Sankyo’s story. Number two, it is the meeting for the year where you get to connect with everyone else in the ecosystem.

For us, we meet with large companies in terms of partnerships. More importantly, we meet with small, emerging biotech companies and really look for ways to partner and work together to bring new medicines to patients. In the three or four days that we’re here, we meet with more people than we meet with for the entire rest of the year.

It’s an amazing week.

PE: Were companies focused on demonstrating their expanded pipelines at this year’s JP Morgan Healthcare Conference?
Keller: The lifeblood of everything we do is new clinical data. For us, its new antibody drug conjugates and taking them to more patients in different indications. That’s what drives this business.

Each year, it gets busier and busier. Whether it’s JP Morgan or other big meetings, the amount of new data, molecules, and potential is accelerating.

PE: Why was there such an emphasis on data collection at this year's conference?
Keller: For Daiichi Sankyo, 2026 is our most important year. In 2025, we shared topline, pivotal results for six different registrational trials. All six were positive, across three ADCs. We had three different pivotal trials with our flagship drug Enhurtu where we’re taking drug from later stages to early-stage breast cancer. The goal is improving the standard care and potentially even curing some patients.

This year, we will potentially launch five new indications across three ADCs in the US. This is something you dream of as an executive in a pharmaceutical company. Launching one is a year is a success, but to do it five times is very exciting.

PE: What are Daiichi Sankyo’s plans for manufacturing expansion in the coming year?
Keller: We’re a global company. Our historical roots are in Japan, but we have manufacturing sites in many different countries. When we look at the political environment in the US, there is incentive to onshore as much manufacturing as possible.

Today, we have manufacturing sites in New York, Ohio, and we’ve announced that we’re expanding that capability. Our goal is to bring all of our ADC manufacturing to the US. It will take some time, but we think that’s the right thing to do to put the company in the best position to bring the drug to as many patients as possible in the US.

PE: What are your post JP Morgan expectations?
Keller: What happens here is the start. These are times when you meet new companies and learn about new technologies. We’re here to make those connections and to find ways to work together to help each other.

What typically happens here is this is the time you make those connections, and then later we follow up on them. At JP Morgan, we may see 30-40 people that we haven’t met before. Maybe 25 will never become anything.

If just a handful of those connections lead to something we can work on together, that’s what it’s all about.