How 2026 Started: First-Weeks Readout on AI, Pharma, & Policy
Early-year overview spanning virtual cell modeling, AI workflow plumbing in R&D and healthcare, obesity-driven capital and licensing, patent-cliff positioning, and FDA/EU policy signals
The year opened hot, with the first weeks of January packed with deal flow, mega-rounds, platform launches, and AI model deployments as JPM week got underway. Companies doubled down on AI partnerships and infrastructure: for example, Eli Lilly and NVIDIA announced a $1 billion, five-year joint AI lab in San Francisco, aimed at making computational models core drug R&D infrastructure.