Johnson & Johnson forecasts 2026 profit above Wall Street estimates

By Michael Erman Jan 21 (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday 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 the Trump administration earlier this month. J&J is one of 16 big pharmaceutical companies that have reached agreements to lower U.S. drug prices in exchange for exemptions from Trump-imposed tariffs. "We can't disclose specific details, but it's hundreds of millions of dollars," Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk said in an interview. "It's a credit to the team here that we were able to surpass what (analyst) expectations are for 2026 by a pretty sizable amount while digesting that impact." The company forecast 2026 operational sales of $99.5 billion to $100.5 billion, exceeding analysts' estimates of $98.9 billion, according to LSEG data. J&J expects full-year 2026 profit coming in at $11.43 to $11.63 per share. Analysts have forecast earnings of $11.45 per share. Despite the upbeat forecast, shares of the company fell 2.7% in premarket trading. They gained roughly 43% in 2025. 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 federal and state court for years, and has said its products are safe and do not cause cancer. J&J also reported fourth-quarter 2025 profit ahead of expectations, buoyed by strong sales of blood cancer therapy 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. Stelara sales 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%. Those are the products that we're going to rely on for the next couple years and the balance of this decade." On an adjusted basis, the healthcare conglomerate earned $6 billion, or $2.46 per share, for the quarter. Analysts were expecting a profit of $2.44 per share. Quarterly revenue of $24.56 billion also topped Wall Street expectations of $24.16 billion. Sales in the Innovative Medicine division, its largest, grew 10% to $15.76 billion in the quarter, beating estimates of $15.37 billion. Quarterly sales for the devices business rose 7.5% to $8.8 billion. (Reporting by Michael Erman in New Jersey; Additional reporting by Puyaan Singh and Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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