For more than four decades, the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco has been the world’s biggest stage for biotech investment and innovation. It has given birth to some of the most transformative breakthroughs in healthcare.
In mid-February, UC Berkeley and J.P. Morgan partnered once again to bring the iconic conference to Asia. The second annual Healthcare Conference Taipei, organized by School of Public Health Dean Michael C. Lu, brought together leading biotech and health tech startups and investors, alongside university, hospital, pharma, and industry leaders from the U.S. and across Asia—including Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, and mainland China.
The two-day conference featured “shark tank”-style presentations from 56 biotech and health tech startups, and five expert panels focused on cross-border investment and partnership opportunities between the United States and Asia. UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons delivered the keynote address, emphasizing the University’s expanding role in entrepreneurship and translational research—science designed to move from lab bench to real-world application.
After a successful panel at Healthcare Conference Taipei (l to r): Kahshin Leow, UC Berkeley Foundation trustee and co-founder of Quantedge Capital; UC Berkeley School of Public Health Dean Michael C. Lu; Dean Richard Harland of UC Berkeley’s Biological Science Division; Dean Jennifer Chayes of UC Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society; and UC Berkeley Chemistry Professor Omar Yaghi.
“At UC Berkeley, our public mission is to provide long-term societal benefit through excellence in research, teaching, and public service,” said Chancellor Lyons. “And while our mission and values have not changed, we are strengthening our support for innovation and entrepreneurship as a way to extend our reach and societal impact. Today, Berkeley leads the nation and the world when it comes to the number of alumni entrepreneurs who have launched venture-backed startups.”
UC Berkeley serves as a wellspring for transformative ideas that have profoundly shaped the trajectory of science, including CRISPR, periodic table elements, scalable antimalarial treatments, and much more. The conference is designed to build on that foundation, connecting cutting-edge science with commercial opportunity to reinforce the University’s role as both a research powerhouse and an engine of progress. By creating a platform for R&D, manufacturing, and co-investment partnerships between the U.S. and Asia, the event aims to accelerate the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and technologies that can prevent disease and save lives.
The conference is designed to build on that foundation, connecting cutting-edge science with commercial opportunity. By creating a platform for R&D, manufacturing, and co-investment partnerships between the U.S. and Asia, the event aims to accelerate the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and technologies that can prevent disease and save lives.
“The innovation happening at—and through—Berkeley consistently inspires me, and I am proud of this global platform to showcase the University’s contributions to human health,” said Jared A. Mazzanti, director of strategic initiatives at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “We are so grateful for the partnership of our Asia-based supporters who transformed this into a truly regional initiative.”
Panelists gathered to discuss Healthcare Investing in the U.S. and Asia (l to r): Ken Horne, founder and managing partner of AN Ventures; Frank Kung, co-founder and managing partner of Vivo Capital; Steven Pan, UC Berkeley Foundation trustee and chairman of Silks Hotel Group-Regent Taipei; Bihua Chen, founder and portfolio manager of Cormorant Asset Management; and Frank Yu, founder, CEO & CIO of Ally Bridge Group.
The conference was co-hosted by UC Berkeley Trustee Steven Pan, whose vision for the conference is to “bring the best of the world to Asia, and showcase the best of Asia to the rest of the world.”
In his opening remarks, UC Berkeley School of Public Health Michael C. Lu said, “We are at the cusp of a new industrial revolution in healthcare, in AI, in biotech that could be just as transformative to our lives as the digital revolution was 30 years ago.”
“Just as with the digital revolution, the right symbiotic collaborations between Asia, the US, and the rest of the world can rocket boost this bio revolution, and that’s exactly what this conference is designed to do, to accelerate innovation to save lives, improve health and make the world a better place.”
The conference was sponsored, in part, by the Berkeley Frontier Fund.