• by Les Luchter , April 15, 2025

Even with pharmaceuticals so far exempt from the Trump Administration’s tariff wars, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on Tuesday projected $400 million in 2025 tariff costs due to its other business: medical devices.

The “most substantial” part of that $400 million will stem from retaliatorytariffs being imposed against U.S. exports into China, CFO Joe Walk told analysts during an earnings call.

“Pharmaceutical tariffs are zero, because tariffs can create disruptions in the supply chain, leading to shortages,” added Chairman-CEO Joaquin Duato in response to a question from Wells Fargo senior analyst Larry Biegelsen.

“It’s important that healthcare companies partner with the administration to mitigate some of the vulnerabilities that exist today in our healthcare supply chain, to make sure we have enough manufacturing capacity here in the U.S. to be able to address multiple scenarios,” Duato said.

Referring to J&J’s March announcement of a $55 billion investment in U.S. production over the next four years, Duato said that, once the plan was implemented, “all our advanced medicines that are used in the U. S. will be manufactured in the U.S.”

“We are working and engaging with the Administration and being deferential to their process,” explained Walk, “looking at the pharmaceutical landscape and where national security interest may reside.”  

What about a possible recession? asked UBS healthcare analyst Danielle Antalffy.

“While nothing is immune, health care overall has proven to be a little bit more recession-proof than most other industries,” Walk answered. “The one thing we look to is certainly jobs reports, because it’s a precursor of who may have benefits and coverage for prescription medications, as well as procedures. …We have seen in times past when there’s been a little bit of recession that some of those elective procedures may get delayed, but they don’t get abandoned.”

And so, J&J kicked off the Q1 pharma earnings report season on Tuesday morning by sticking with its 2025 guidance of a 2% to 3% sales increase, to over $91 billion for the year.

For the quarter, the pharma giant reported sales of $21.9 billion, up 4.2% year-over-year.  That came in over Wall Street expectations, but the tariff situation caused J&J’s stock price to decline during the day, reported Barron’s. 

Duato called the quarterly earnings particularly impressive considering last year’s loss of exclusivity for its psoriasis drug Stelara. “No other healthcare company has delivered growth through the first year of losing exclusivity for a multibillion-dollar product,” he declared.

Duato singled out Darzalex, a cancer drug that fights multiple myeloma and last year became the first Johnson & Johnson drug to ever top $3 billion in quarterly sales. That’s now happened for three consecutive quarters, with Q1 sales up over 20%.  

Other J&J drugs that treat multiple myeloma also performed strongly: Carvykti, with $369 million in sales, up over 100%; Tecvayl, $151 million, up 13.3%; and Talvey, $86 million, up 48.4%.

Tremfya, a psoriasis drug that has picked up much of the Stelara business and has now expanded into IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, saw its Q1 sales rise to $956 million, up 18.2%, with Duato predicting its will “become the gold standard for IBD patients and a $10 billion-plus product.”

Remicade, an anti-inflammatory used largely to treat rheumatoid arthritis, but also applicable to psoriasis and other conditions, saw sales rise 7.5%, to $467 million.