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iStock, yuelan Johnson & Johnson’s $23.7 billion in second-quarter earnings, driven by cancer and neuroscience drugs, exceeded analyst expectations, while CEO Joaquin Duato set a target of $50 billion in oncology sales by 2030. Johnson & Johnson’s oncology and neuroscience units more than offset pressures on other parts of the business to drive medicine sales up 4.9%, the company reported Wednesday morning, with CEO Joaquin Duato setting an ambitious five-year target for the oncology division. The New Jersey–based pharma posted global sales of $23.7 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.29. J&J’s medicine unit accounted for $15.2 billion of the sales, with medtech products contributing the other $8.5 billion. Both units beat the consensus estimate of analysts, Leerink Partners analysts said in a note to investors Wednesday morning, with medicine sales coming in 4% above expectations. Medicines and devices both contributed to the beat-and-raise quarter. Jennifer Taubert, worldwide chairman, innovative medicine at J&J, said on an investor call Wednesday morning that a broad set of products drove the pharma unit’s growth. “If you take a look at the 90% of our business that is not Stelara, we actually had extraordinarily robust growth of 15.5%, really demonstrating the strength across our portfolio,” Taubert said. “We had 13 brands that were growing double digits.” Oncology and neuroscience were the standout performers. In oncology, J&J reported 24% growth, fueled by market share gains for multiple myeloma blockbuster Darzalex, prostate cancer drug Erleada and CAR T cell therapy Carvykti. J&J named the launches of the bispecific antibodies Tecvayli, Talvey and Rybrevant as additional growth drivers. The company aims to grow oncology sales to $50 billion by 2030, Duato said on the call. J&J’s forecast is at least three times above the 2028 consensus, Taubert said, naming bladder cancer candidate TAR-200 as the asset with “the biggest disconnect between our internal forecasts and what the Street expects.” In neuroscience, rising demand for the depression drug Spravato helped J&J grow sales by 15.1% on a reported basis. The company grew neuroscience sales despite the Medicare Part D redesign and an unfavorable patient mix depressing sales of drugs including the atypical antipsychotic Invega Sustenna. In its Q2 presentation, J&J cited the Part D redesign as a headwind to multiple products, including its inflammatory disease drug Stelara. With Stelara also facing biosimilar competition, J&J said the product had an approximately 1,170 basis points (11.7%) impact on growth. Falling Stelara sales more than offset the growth of Tremfya and Simponi, causing immunology sales to fall 15.4%. The company expects Stelara biosimilar competition to accelerate in the second half of the year. Despite mounting pressure on the inflammatory disease drug, J&J raised its estimated reported sales growth for the full year. Previously, J&J forecast growth of 2.6% to 3.6%. Now, the company is targeting reported growth of 5.1% to 5.6% based on its strong performance in the quarter, CEO Joaquin Duato said on an investor call Wednesday morning. The change added $2 billion to the midpoint of J&J’s full-year sales estimate. Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional commentary from J&J’s earnings call.

Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday reported quarterly prescription drug sales that for the first time surpassed $15 billion, highlighting the strength of the pharmaceutical companys portfolio during a year in which its formerly top-selling drug lost market exclusivity.Second quarter sales for J&Js pharmaceuticals business reached $15.2 billion between April and June, nearly 4% higher than the same period last year on an operational basis. Overall second quarter sales were up 4.6% on the same basis to total $23.7 billion, beating Wall Street forecasts.J&J now expects higher operational growth for 2025, increasing the midpoint of its guidance range for both adjusted sales and earnings per share.The company also halved its estimates for how much U.S. tariffs would weigh on its business this year. It now anticipates a roughly $200 million hit, exclusively within its medical device unit. President Donald Trump has said further levies on pharmaceuticals are coming soon, but indicated the duties would be phased in, potentially giving drugmakers time to adjust their operations and stockpile inventory.J&J shares jumped by more than 6% Wednesday morning following its earnings release.No other healthcare company has grown through the loss of exclusivity of a multibillion-dollar product in the first year, in our case Stelara, J&J CEO Joaquin Duato said on a conference call with analysts, referring to the companys 16-year-old psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease medicine.Stelara sales during the quarter fell by 43% year over year, to $1.7 billion.J&J has a newer drug, Tremfya, that it has positioned as a successor to Stelara in many of the same diseases and hopes will eventually grow into a $10 billion-a-year product. Sales in the second quarter rose 30% year over year to $1.2 billion as more doctors prescribed it for Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis.But its J&Js oncology business thats providing the most significant counterweight to Stelaras loss of exclusivity. Overall cancer drug sales were $6.3 billion between April and June, more than $1 billion higher than in the same period last year.Over half of that total came from J&Js multiple myeloma medicine Darzalex, which is one of several drugs the company sells for the blood cancer. Duato claimed about 80% of all multiple myeloma patients receive a J&J therapy as some point in their treatment.By the end of the decade, J&J predicts its oncology business will bring in $50 billion in annual sales, notably higher than what analysts on Wall Street currently estimate.Jennifer Taubert, head of the companys pharmaceuticals business, pointed to Darzalex and its multiple myeloma cell therapy Carvykti as key contributors to that goal. Two other J&J medicines, Tecvayli and Talvey, are also approved for the blood cancer, but are early in their respective launches.Taubert also highlighted a drug-device combination called TAR-200 that J&J is targeting for use in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. That is probably the asset that has the biggest disconnect between our internal forecasts and what the Street expects, she said. If you take a look at 2028 consensus, we actually see our numbers at least three times higher.J&J previously detailed several other drugs for which analysts forecasts diverge from its own. One other is a combination of the medicines Rybrevant and Lazcluze, which are approved for a certain type of metastatic lung cancer. The company aims to win U.S. clearance for a subcutaneous version of Rybrevant, but had its application rejected by the Food and Drug Administration in December.On Wednesdays call, Taubert said the agencys complete response letter related to a manufacturing question or two and J&J has since responded. '