Johnson & Johnson offices in Irvine, California, US, on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Johnson & Johnson reported first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations on Tuesday and raised its full-year forecast, as strong demand for the cancer drug Darzalex and the psoriasis treatment Tremfya more than offset a steep falloff in sales of its blockbuster autoimmune drug Stelara.
The drug and device maker reported first-quarter revenue of $24.1 billion, up nearly 10% from a year earlier. That exceeded analysts’ estimates of $23.6 billion, according to LSEG data. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.70 per share, above the consensus estimate of $2.66.
Stelara, which topped $10 billion in annual sales at its peak, is facing biosimilar competition after losing patent protection last year. Sales of the drug fell around 60% from a year ago to $656 million.
Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk said in an interview that instead of switching to biosimilars, many patients have chosen other treatments such as Tremfya.
“We are seeing increased share in Tremfya and we anticipate we’ll see something similar in the new oral offering,” Wolk said, referring to its new drug Icotyde, which was approved in March.
Tremfya, which treats psoriasis as well as inflammatory bowel diseases, brought in $1.6 billion for the quarter. Analysts were expecting sales of $1.2 billion for the drug.
Sales of Darzalex, a blood cancer therapy launched in 2015, were $4.0 billion for the quarter, easily beating analysts’ expectations of $3.4 billion.
Quarterly sales for the medical technology business rose 7.7% to $8.6 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations.
The company raised its full-year 2026 revenue forecast range with a new midpoint of about $100.8 billion, just above Wall Street’s estimate of $100.6 billion. It also lifted its adjusted earnings outlook to $11.55 per share at the midpoint, roughly in line with current expectations.
J&J is among the top global drugmakers that have agreed to so-called most-favored-nation drug pricing deals with the Trump administration. The companies have said they will lower their U.S. drug prices to match those charged in other developed countries, in exchange for tariff relief.
President Donald Trump has asked Congress to codify the most-favored-nation deals through legislation, but Wolk said J&J believes that would be bad policy.
“We’re not a fan of codifying” MFN, he said. “It’s really kind of a back door to price controls and we’ve seen what happens in countries with price controls — patients have less access to the most important medicines and innovation goes down.”
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