Dive Brief:
- Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced Q3 2014 earnings today, announcing sales of $18.5 billion and net earnings of $4.7 billion. That's an increase of 5.1% over Q3 2013.
- Based on recent and anticipated performance, J&J increased its FY 2014 earnings forecase to a range of $5.92 to $5.97 per share.
- The strong earnings report is largely driven by the positive impact of new drugs in the J&J portfolio, including Olysio/Sovriad (simeprevir) for hepatitis C treatment; Xarelto (rivoroxaban), an oral anticoagulant; Invokana (canagliflozin) for treatment of type 2 diabetes; and other drugs.
Dive Insight:
Although there were a couple of areas that dampened overall earnings, including the negative impact of currency on global consumer sales (down 0.6% from Q3 2013 to $3.6 billion), the overall earnings trend for J&J is going up. While pharma products contributed greatly to the strong report, OTC products also performed well, including adult upper respiratory brands and Listerine.
While J&J benefited from its broad portfolio of small molecule drugs across a range of therapeutic areas—diabetes, cardiovascular disease, psychiatry/neurology, virology, etc.—biologics also played a big role in positive earnings.In particular, Remicade (infliximab) for anti-inflammatory conditions and Stelara (ustekinumab) for moderate-to-severe plague psoriasis were big contributors to the bottom line. Remicade had worldwide earnings of $1.782 billion for the third quarter, up 5.5% from Q3 2013, while Stelara had sales of $543 in Q3 2014, compared with $370 million in Q3 2013—a growth rate of 46.8% quarter to quarter.
J&J has been introducing new products, maintaining a diversified portfolio, and keeping up a robust mix of OTC/branded products both domestically in America and throughout the globe. The full-year 2014 outlook for the giant is undisputedly positive.