Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is on track to become
the first $100 billion healthcare company this year, per guidance released Jan. 21 as the firm kicked off the pharma industry’s earnings report season.
J&J projected reported sales
for 2026 of $100.08 billion to $101.08 billion, which would represent a 6.2% to 7.2% increase over 2025’s $94.2 billion, which represented 5.3% growth year-over-year. In Q4 2025 alone, J&J
sales reached $24.6 billion, an increase of 7.1% YoY.
By the end of the decade, J&J is expecting double-digit annual growth, said CEO Joaquin Duato on an analysts’ call.
“How is that possible?” he asked rhetorically, answering that the company now has 20 products that generate $1 billion or more in annual revenues.
The company’s pharma
business, which it calls Innovative Medicine, exceeded $60 billion for the first time in 2025 (medtech accounts for the rest of the sales), with 13 brands growing by double digits in 2025.
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Duato, declaring that “we are working to cure cancer,” said that oncology, one of J&J’s three core pharma areas, should exceed $50 billion in annual sales by 2030,
“sustained by our success in [treating] multiple myeloma, and also in solid tumors with lung cancer, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer.”
In multiple myeloma, he said, “80%
of patients are treated with at least one of our four medicines over their treatment journey.” One of those meds, Darzalex, is J&J’s largest-selling pharma brand, accounting for over
$14 billion in 2025 sales, growing 22% Y0Y.
Another hot pharma product is Tremfya, which treats psoriasis, IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s
disease. Tremfya saw sales growth of 75% Y0Y in the fourth quarter, and full-year sales topping $5 billion. “We see Tremfya as more than a $10 billion asset,” Duato stated.
Tremfya has been helped by a large TV ad budget, coming in as the largest pharma ad spender in December -- a total of $56.4 million, according to iSpot figures reported by Fierce Pharma
Marketing. For all of 2025, Tremfya placed second in TV spending, behind only AbbVie’s Skyrizzi, which treats similar conditions. Tremfya, the publication reported, more than doubled its TV
spending during the year, from $160 million in 2024 to $431 million in 2025. Here are samples of recent Tremfya and Skyrizi commercials.
Duato said that pharma innovations for 2026 are expected to include the launch of Icotyde, also for conditions
like psoriasis and IBD, “which “will expand our immunology innovation beyond injectable medicines” and become a “new blockbuster for us….This is going to be a
transformational change for the treatment of these diseases.”
J&J CFO Joseph Wolk 2026 pointed to other products expected to drive 2026 sales growth. In pharma, these include another
multiple myeloma drug, Carvykti; Erlita, for prostate cancer; and Spravato for depression.
Johnson & Johnson, since its split with Kenvue, "has established a more defined, targeted
offering, moving away from having various types of business models that convoluted what the company stood for, and instead honing in on high-growth areas: pharmaceutical and medical
devices," Jenn Szekely, president of global brand consultancy Coley Porter Bell, told Marketing Daily. The company's recent acquisitions, such as Halda Therapeutics and
Intra-Cellular Therapies, have further increased "Johnson & Johnson’s dominance across its two core segments, creating an increasingly competitive offering."
The $3.05 billion Halda
deal, completed in Q4, gave J&J a key therapy for prostate cancer and other therapies, while the $14.6 billion Intra-Cellular deal, completed earlier in the year, brought mental health drug
Caplyta to J&J. Caplyta tracked $249 million in sales in Q4, Duato said.
In legal matters, Duato and Wold dismissed the latest developments in the long-running case of women claiming
that talc in the baby powder sold by J&J’s former consumer division caused their ovarian cancer.
In what Reuters called “a victory for thousands of women,” a
court-appointed special master on Tuesday recommended that they “be allowed to present testimony at trial from experts” who support their claims.
“We will certainly appeal
those erroneous parts of the recommendation to the district court,” Wolk told the analysts. “The bottom line is, this is not going to change our strategy.”