The annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference includes presentations from major medtech companies; Some use the conference as a platform for major announcements while some just take the opportunity to explain their 2023 outlook to investors. Here are some of the highlights from the presentations on the second day of the meeting.

Two $1bn+ alliances were penned in April. Vertex and Obsidian entered into an agreement surrounding the discovery of therapies that regulate gene editing for the treatment of serious diseases. Obsidian is eligible for up to $75m in up-front payments and research milestones and could get another $1.3bn in potential milestone payments across up to five potential programs. Artios signed a three-year global research collaboration with Novartis to discover and validate next-generation DNA damage response targets to enhance Novartis’ radioligand therapies. In the top April M&A by deal value, Thermo Fisher and publicly traded contract research organization PPD announced a definitive agreement under which Thermo Fisher will pay $47.50 per share (a 23% premium to the 10-day pre-announcement average) in cash for PPD, for a purchase price of $17.4bn plus the assumption of approximately $3.5bn of net debt. Financing reached $14.6bn in biopharma, $1.2bn in device, and $2.4bn in diagnostics.

The diagnostic company has secured more government funding for DeepView, a product it has developed to assess the healing of certain types of wound. In total, BARDA has supported SpectralMD with almost a quarter of a billion dollars.