Overheard at JP Morgan's 25th Health Care Conference: Making Up for Lost Drugs: Pharma Attempts to Appease Investors

The annual JP Morgan conference has always been a stage for reviewing new solutions to the basic business-model problem of biotechnology. But as Big Pharma's troubles have grown, the conference has also become a showcase for large drug company problems. The quick fix: keep shareholders in the stocks by returning cash to them. Medium term: adopt one of four basic business models. Longer term: disaggregate.