As I write this, I join colleagues at the largest global gathering of healthcare innovators, disruptors, talent, VCs, and more in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, for a week and weekend of frontline insights and discussions around 2025’s major themes.

From the biggest disease targets for R&D and emerging tools in the differentiated drug development space, to an outlook around the future of biotech, the 43rd Annual Healthcare Conference truly created an environment for current leaders and upcoming innovators to share their vision. 

From strategy to the science and technologies behind some of the most impressive growth across presenting organisations, the symposium showcases key factors in a dynamic and ever-evolving healthcare landscape. Opinion leaders from J.P. Morgan’s own US Diversified BioPharma Senior Analyst alongside key speakers at the event are predicting the importance of M&As across healthcare – consolidating provider groups, expanding digital health platforms, and acquiring AI-driven startups. 

With a focus on digital-first platforms and precision medicine in alignment with long-term value creation, patient experience improvement, optimised personalised care pathways, and increased operational efficiency are repeatedly being hailed as essential players in strategic growth considerations. In a similar vein, at a health system level, targets are noted to be increasingly shifting towards creating more resilient healthcare systems that embed sustainable approaches. 

Core to this has been digital transformation as a central enabler in the streamlining of processes that, in turn, boost healthcare systems in delivering better operational efficiency. Models that support the management of rising costs and tackle capacity challenges in the face of ongoing workforce shortages will therefore be critical as strategic planning for the year ahead progresses, prioritising solutions that reduce provider burdens while continuing to deliver the best patient care possible under increasing demand.

Highlights across the Pharma and Biotech space, as always, stress the importance of real-world evidence (RWE) in strategies required to improve drug development and inform clinical decisions – using digital tools to accelerate R&D timelines, support clinical trial successes, and improve efficiency. While therapeutic targets remain diverse across the industry’s biggest players – Novartis continuing to scale transformative therapies, particularly in radioligand, RNA platforms, and oncology; Eli Lilly presenting an expanding portfolio in metabolic health, including diabetes and obesity; Pfizer detailing innovations in vaccine and next-generation oncology pipelines; and Amgen highlighting strong investments in biosimilars and cardiovascular care – the use of real-world data (RWD) and the importance of partnerships to support advancements remain a common theme.

At the start of 2025, there is a clear philosophy brought to the forefront by global leaders, as we consider how to bring together organisations and disciplines to accelerate innovation. The importance of collaboration for systemic change is one that I imagine few would argue against, bridging the gap from public to private bodies in order to establish clear regulatory frameworks with the growth of AI and RWD integration into clinical care and healthcare spaces. Between government, industry, and providers, there is a powerful opportunity to address health challenges at a truly global scale – coordinating our efforts to improve health equity, tackle workforce challenges, and advance therapeutic access.

From the US to the UK | How Global Healthcare Systems Are Transforming Their Approaches to Innovation

Balancing an incredible opportunity to take a peek into what’s being done at the cutting edge of healthcare-focused AI and a marathon of 1:1 venture meetings, dinners, and cocktail receptions, I set up a base in MKT – Four Seasons for the week. Between a taco and my next meeting, I open The Times to check in with any key updates back home. 

What immediately catches my eye is a live feed that Sir Keir Starmer will announce plans to make vast archives of retrospective patient scans, biodata, and anonymised records available for players at the forefront of science and technology to train AI models. Sir Keir’s statement reflects an exciting move towards trying to unlock the full potential of the UK’s rich healthcare data ecosystem that, if done right, could provide a much-needed boost to health and life sciences. 

Back in the US, companies including NVIDIA and Tempus are announcing a continued drive for innovation. With the former’s goal of scaling advanced AI tools in the predictive analytics and personalised medicines space across healthcare, to the latter’s highlighted use of AI in precision oncology and rare disease treatment planning, I can only imagine news of growing data access to drive the ongoing development and finetuning of such technologies is a welcome step. As Talkspace launches its own AI-powered support tool focused on the early identification of risks in mental health and improved navigation of patient care pathways, the adoption of AI into digital health and care management workflows seems to be ever-growing. 

From the acceleration of innovation to the practical side of improved outcomes for patients, these announcements truly highlight the immense promise of AI in tackling large-scale healthcare challenges. However, they also underscore a longstanding need for collaboration and digitally enabled systems that can turn potential into real-world impact.

I therefore thought, let me test VC appetite for this in real-time. At every meeting, I ensured that my last question was “How are you guys thinking about AI in health and investing here?” Unsurprisingly, though with some disappointment, most VCs, FOs, innovators, providers, and across 98% of my 60 meetings with some of the smartest people I’ve met, encompassing roughly £5bn of investment, people just didn’t see this being an area of massive wins for healthcare. So why is this? 

AI-Driven Advancements in the Healthcare Space

Well, for one, I am an optimist at heart and believe that this is possible. In 2013, the then-government announced that it would be paperless in 5 years, and I commented in The Guardian that I thought this could be done. I was a lot greener back then and significantly overestimated the NHS’s ability to embrace change. So, with hindsight being 20:20, I would love to see this happen. However, it will be a matter of when. 

What I do think is both an amazing opportunity and entirely achievable is leveraging the trained AI innovations that already exist and ensuring they are embraced, funded, and rolled out to support patient care, outcomes, research, administration, and beyond. There are already numerous companies doing incredible work in AI that should be adopted more widely by the NHS, including Holly Health, with its personalised lifestyle behaviour change and chronic condition coaching apps; Liberate AI’s healthcare performance and outcomes improvement solutions; Skin Analytics’ use of AI to detect skin cancer and promote early diagnosis; and Sanius Health, which is harnessing predictive technologies and RWE to enable proactive care and optimise diagnostic pathways. 

Supporting accelerated access and commercial opportunities for existing AI solutions could be key to unlocking the full potential of the NHS data strategy. While the journey to full integration of solutions like these into our healthcare systems is complex and something that requires time, the potential benefits are clearly immense. With the right focus, collaboration, and commitment, the opportunities for reshaping patient care and outcomes for the better are well within reach.