Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) has reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2024, with global sales reaching USD 22.4 billion, reflecting a strong operational growth of 6.6% year-on-year, excluding currency impacts. When adjusting for COVID-19 sales, this growth rises to 7.2%. The company’s innovative medicine segment contributed USD 14.5 billion to sales, marking an 8.8% expansion, while med-tech sales amounted to USD 8.0 billion, up 4.4%. The market responded positively to these results, with J&J’s stock price closing up 3.69% on the day of the earnings release .
In the pharmaceutical sector, J&J saw particularly strong performance from its oncology drugs. Darzalex (daratumumab) for multiple myeloma treatment reported sales of USD 2.88 billion, a 21.3% increase year-on-year. The prostate cancer drug Erleada (apalutamide) also showed significant growth, with sales up 32.5% to USD 736 million. The immunology field also contributed to the company’s success, with Tremfya (guselkumab) for plaque psoriasis generating a 30.7% increase in sales to USD 906 million, and Stelara (ustekinumab) for auto-immune diseases seeing a 4.9% rise in sales to USD 2.89 billion. In neuroscience, the depression drug Spravato (esketamine) recorded a substantial 60.8% increase in sales, reaching USD 271 million.
The CAR-T cell therapy Carvykti (ciltacabtagene autoleucel), co-developed with Legend Biotech (Nasdaq: LEGN), has shown promising results with a 59.9% increase in sales to USD 186 million during Q2’24, and an 81.5% increase in the first half of the year, reaching USD 343 million in global sales. This positions the therapy to potentially achieve blockbuster status, breaking through the USD 1 billion mark in global sales this year, especially after its recent approval as a second-line treatment for R/R MM in the U.S. in April 2024.
J&J’s pipeline also looks promising, with key developments in the first half of 2024 including an EU approval filing for Tremfya to expand its indications to include ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, in addition to its existing approvals for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The EGFR/MET bispecific antibody Rybrevant (amivantamab) received FDA approval for use in combination with chemotherapy as a first-line non-small cell lung cancer therapy, significantly expanding its addressable market.
On the medtech front, J&J’s Varipulse pulsed field ablation product demonstrated 75% effectiveness, suggesting it could compete with existing products from Medtronic and Boston Scientific. Furthermore, in April 2024, J&J announced plans to acquire Shockwave Medical for USD 13.1 billion, aiming to integrate its intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) technology for treating calcified coronary artery disease (CAD) and peripheral artery disease (PAD) into J&J’s portfolio .- Flcube.com
