BackJohnson & Johnson posts higher profit as healthcare demand returns
Company raises guidance for rest of the year as Covid-19 vaccination campaign continues
PremiumGreater demand for medical devices, drugs and consumer-health products helped boost sales and profit for Johnson & Johnson in the latest quarter, as the company’s Covid-19 shot continued to play a role in vaccination campaigns.
As people returned for healthcare they had deferred earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, sales of J&J’s medical devices climbed 63% year over year. Higher sales of the company’s skin care and beauty products helped lift J&J’s consumer-health revenue by 13% compared with a year earlier.
J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine contributed revenue of $165 million between April and June, a rise from $100 million in the first three months of the year.
Pharmaceutical sales rose 17% overall, driven by higher sales of Stelara, a drug for inflammatory diseases, Darzalex, a multiple-myeloma drug, and Tremfya, a drug for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.
The New Brunswick, N.J.-based company logged sales of $23.31 billion—a 27% increase year over year—and adjusted earnings of $2.48 a share. Wall Street analysts had forecast adjusted earnings of $2.29 a share and revenue of $22.49 billion, according to FactSet’s survey.
Shares climbed 1.1% in premarket trading.
Of the roughly 162 million fully vaccinated Americans, about 13 million have gotten J&J’s single-dose Covid-19 shot, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with most others receiving shots made by Pfizer Inc. or Moderna Inc.
Last week, U.S. health regulators added a warning to the J&J vaccine’s label, cautioning that it has been linked to a very small incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that has also emerged as an uncommon side effect of other vaccines. Earlier this year, the J&J vaccine suffered a setback when regulators paused its use to study its connection with a rare blood-clotting condition.
As the company’s shot contributes to the continuing vaccination campaign against Covid-19, J&J has been working to put behind it two groups of legal proceedings. On one front, J&J has considered putting a subsidiary into bankruptcy as a strategy to settle claims linking its talcum-based baby powder to cases of ovarian cancer.
Along with other companies in the pharmaceutical industry, J&J also is facing lawsuits accusing it of having played a role in the opioid epidemic. Some lawsuits against J&J, and drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. may be nearing a conclusion as the companies approach a $26 billion settlement of claims filed by states and municipalities, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.
J&J raised its guidance for the full year, forecasting sales of $93.8 billion to $94.6 billion and adjusted earnings of $9.60 to $9.70 a share.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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