I walked 117,000 steps between Mission and Market Street in San Francisco last week. My feet are still recovering, but the conversations were worth it.

JPM is a peculiar thing. Thirty-plus meetings crammed into hotel lobbies, rooftop bars, and the occasional 50th-floor conference room with actual views. The sun came out again this year - two years running now. That felt symbolic somehow.

Here’s what I noticed:

The conversations have shifted

For the first time in years, policy wasn’t dominating every room. People were focused on fundamentals again - timelines, execution, getting drugs to patients. The tone felt productive rather than defensive.

What struck me most was the consistency. Across meetings with pharma, biotech, healthtech, and women’s health companies, the same themes kept surfacing: how do we actually scale AI, where are the real productivity gains, and who can we trust to deliver?

That last question came up more than I expected. In almost every conversation about CRO relationships, the language was the same: partnerships, not vendor check-ins. People are tired of being managed. They want to work with teams who own outcomes alongside them.

The AI question has evolved

Every AI conversation I had came back to one question: What does this actually do for my trial timeline?

No one cares about theoretical applications anymore. The interest is entirely in what’s already working. What’s operationalized. What’s moving the needle today, not in a pitch deck.

The timing of the regulatory news felt almost scripted. On January 14 - literally during JPM week - the FDA and EMA jointly released guidance on AI principles for drug development. Real regulatory clarity, finally. Two days earlier, FDA published draft guidance on Bayesian methodology for clinical trials - a signal that statistical modernization is actually happening.

When regulators and sponsors are asking the same questions in the same week, you pay attention.

The meeting culture is changing

Fierce Biotech nailed it: “All meetings, none of the mega deals.” JPM is evolving into something different. The big announcements are happening throughout the year now, not saved for the conference stage.

What filled the space? More substantive conversations. Less theater. People evaluating what you’ve actually delivered, not what you’re announcing. I found that refreshing.

What I’m watching

Women’s health momentum is real. The conversations have matured from “this space is underserved” to serious discussions about infrastructure and capital in the same breath. Companies in this space are looking for development partners who genuinely understand what they’re building.

Timeline pressure is acute for biotech, especially with early-stage funding so concentrated. Everyone seems to be racing toward Phase 3 data at the same time, which means capacity constraints keep surfacing. When the constraint is execution, people start asking harder questions about who can actually help them get there.

The Lindus perspective

I’ll be honest - I came away from the week feeling like the timing is right for what we do.

When every AI conversation is about timeline impact, and regulators are providing clarity the same week, the question becomes: who’s already operationalized the tools that compress those timelines? When biotechs say they want partnerships instead of vendors, they’re describing something specific - teams who own outcomes with them, not just complete tasks and move on.

And when the focus shifts from stage announcements to track record, you can’t paper over gaps in execution. People are paying attention to what you’ve actually delivered.

That’s the work. Quiet, consistent, accountable work. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what makes progress possible.

My feet are telling me to take it easy this week. But the conversations from JPM are still turning over in my head - and I suspect they will for a while.

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