Johnson & Johnson forecasts 2026 profit above Wall Street estimates
The upbeat performance comes as the company faces multiple challenges, including tariff uncertainty on its medical devices unit
JOHNSON & Johnson (J&J) on Wednesday (Jan 21) forecast 2026 sales and profit ahead of Wall Street estimates, even when including a hit of “hundreds of millions of dollars” from the drug-pricing deal it signed with US President Donald Trump’s administration earlier in January.
J&J is one of 16 big pharmaceutical companies to have reached agreements to lower US drug prices, in exchange for exemptions from Trump-imposed tariffs.
Joseph Wolk, chief financial officer of the firm, said: “We can’t disclose specific details, but it is hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a credit to the team here that we were able to surpass what (analyst) expectations are for 2026 by a pretty sizeable amount while digesting that impact.”
The company forecast 2026 operational sales of US$99.5 billion to US$100.5 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates of US$98.9 billion, data by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) showed.
J&J expects full-year 2026 profit coming in at US$11.43 to US$11.63 a share. Analysts have forecast earnings of US$11.45 a share.
Despite the upbeat forecast, shares of the company fell 2.7 per cent in premarket trading. They gained roughly 43 per cent in 2025.
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The results land a day after a court-appointed special master recommended that expert testimony linking the company’s talc products to ovarian cancer be allowed in court.
J&J has been fighting claims over its talc products in both the federal and state court for years, and has said its products are safe and do not cause cancer.
The company also reported fourth-quarter 2025 profit ahead of expectations, buoyed by strong sales of blood cancer therapy drug Darzalex, solid growth in psoriasis drug Tremfya and resilience in its medical devices business.
The upbeat performance comes as the company faces multiple challenges, including tariff uncertainty on its medical devices unit and rising competition for its blockbuster psoriasis drug Stelara from biosimilars, sales of which had declined more than analysts had forecast.
“How nice is it that Stelara was down so much – maybe even more than analysts thought – and we still continue to grow?“ Wolk said.
“If you just take Stelara out of that mix, that portfolio is growing 14, 15 per cent. Those are the products that we are going to rely on for the next couple of years and the balance of this decade.”
On an adjusted basis, the healthcare conglomerate earned US$6 billion, or US$2.46 a share for the quarter. Analysts were expecting a profit of US$2.44 a share.
Quarterly revenue of US$24.56 billion also topped Wall Street expectations of US$24.16 billion.
Sales in the innovative medicine division, its largest, grew 10 per cent to US$15.76 billion in the quarter, beating estimates of US$15.37 billion.
Quarterly sales for the devices business rose 7.5 per cent to US$8.8 billion. REUTERS
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