Johnson & Johnson raised its full-year forecast again on October 13, 2026, and CFO Joe Wolk tells Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman that pharmaceuticals led the way, with oncology up 17% and immunology returning to growth despite losing exclusivity on Stelara. Wolk explains why MedTech growth of about 2.5% needs to improve, how a new heart pump study and Middle East budgets factor in, and why prescriptions for J&J's new oral psoriasis pill are reaching beyond dermatologists. He also says Tremfya could become a more than $10 billion product, explains why J&J is leaning toward a spinoff of its orthope...
What Joseph Wolk said
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Joseph Wolk, CFO of Johnson & Johnson, discussed the company's raised full-year forecast, driven by strong pharmaceutical performance. Oncology grew 17%, representing over $7 billion in the quarter, nearly $8 billion. Neuroscience drugs Caplyta and Spravato performed well, and immunology grew despite a $900 million headwind from Stelara's loss of exclusivity. MedTech posted 2.5% growth, with U.S. up 5% but international flat due to geopolitical factors. Wolk highlighted innovation in heart recovery, with a new study of 1,252 patients validating the world's smallest heart pump. He expects MedTech to improve by 2027, aiming for double-digit growth by the end of the decade. For Ixekizumab, prescriptions reached 20,000, and he forecast Tremfya to become a $10 billion product. Wolk confirmed a preference for spinning off the orthopedics division rather than selling, citing low MedTech valuations. He noted a 2% price erosion headwind year to date.
Key takeaways
J&J raised its full-year forecast for the third time this year, citing strength across pharma including 17% oncology growth.
Ixekizumab has 20,000 prescriptions in its first two quarters, with a prescribing base of 9,000 healthcare professionals.
Tremfya is expected to be a better than $10 billion product, with 68% growth and advantages in fistulating Crohn's disease.
J&J is leaning towards spinning off its orthopedics unit rather than selling it, despite offers valuing it as high as $20 billion.
MedTech growth of 2.5% was below expectations, but J&J expects improvement by 2027 and double-digit growth by the end of the decade.
0:00You guys raised your forecast yet again for the full year, and I'm just curious, kind of what keeps surprising you to the upside as the year goes on that is driving these forecast increases?
Joining me, Johnson & Johnson Chief Financial Officer Joe Wolk. Joe, it's good to see you this morning. You guys raised your forecast yet again for the full year, and I'm just curious, kind of what keeps surprising you to the upside as the year goes on that is driving these forecast increases?
Yeah, Julie, it's nice to see you, and thank you for your interest in Johnson & Johnson. It's a great job by the team. They continue to do extremely well across the board, most notably in pharmaceuticals. If you look at our three areas of expertise, our therapeutic areas of focus, oncology grew 17%. This is a franchise that represents over $7 billion in the quarter, almost $8 billion. Neuroscience, with two great drugs for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disease — Caplyta as well as Spravato — continued to do extremely well. And then immunology, even though it was facing almost a $900 million headwind year-on-year for the loss of exclusivity on a product known as Stelara, continues its growth pattern. It grew for the first time in a couple of quarters. Great new products there: Tremfya for inflammatory bowel disease, and Ixekizumab, an oral treatment for psoriasis, is really having a pronounced effect. So the team continues to do well. It wasn't a perfect print for us. MedTech needs to do a little bit better than the 2.5% growth that that posted. But it's really a tale of two cities. In the U.S. we grew a respectable 5%. Outside the U.S. it was a little bit flat. I would really attribute that to geopolitical, macro types of phenomena.
I want to dig more into the pharma side in a moment, which, as you pointed out, was the area of strength. But let's linger on MedTech, right? How do you fix that if it is indeed sort of macro, geopolitical? You can only control what you can control. What can you control? How do you improve those MedTech numbers?
Yeah. So some of it is through great innovation. There's one area in heart recovery there. There was a study done in the UK which has given, I'd say, practitioners a reason to pause in utilizing the world's smallest heart pump that has saved over 400,000 lives. We're coming out with our own study next year that should be published that is going to have four times the number of patients, so 1,252 patients. We think that'll validate the use of this product, of which there's nothing else like it on the marketplace, and again, it saves lives. In terms of some of the macro or geopolitical issues, if you think about the war in the Middle East, it's not that the demand isn't there, it's just that budgets are now being allocated from some of the surrounding countries on defense versus healthcare. But because the demand is there, we think that passes over time because we know these are countries that do prioritize top, premium healthcare. So we think that will remedy itself as we move into 2027. So we're on a path here, with the contribution of MedTech, the strength of pharmaceuticals, to really be on a path to double-digit growth by the end of this decade. We'll get better each and every year as the decade unfolds here.
You mentioned Ixekizumab, which has been one of your areas of strength to treat psoriasis. Prescriptions, I believe, for that just about doubled. You're not revealing revenue from that yet, but I'm curious: of those prescriptions, how much of them are sort of early free samples to get people interested and, you know, to find out that it's working for them? And then when do you expect to release more clarity on the revenue from that?
Yeah. So we kind of have hard and fast guidelines with respect to when we report revenue. Sometimes you have smaller products and you don't want to, you know, burden investors trying to digest more. That's a very astute observation on your part. So our revenue would probably be double if it wasn't for the free goods, and it would probably be a reportable product for us at this point in time. 20,000 prescriptions to date over just these first two quarters. The prescribing base is about 9,000 strong. And Julie, what we really like about this is you would expect, because it's indicated for psoriasis, that it would be prescribed by dermatologists. But what we're also seeing, in addition to dermatologists, are primary care physicians, advanced practitioners such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants. That really speaks to the broad appeal. Now, we also have a drug for Tremfya. It's a biologic for psoriasis, known as Tremfya, I should say, that has not slowed down in demand at all. So what we're really doing with this once-daily oral pill that's easy to take is expanding the marketplace. We know, based on market research, that about only 30 to 40% of people who are eligible for treatment will receive a biologic because there's either a fear of needles or there's a connotation that a biologic treatment suggests a disease much more serious than people want to admit to. So this really bodes well. We should have some data on psoriatic arthritis, and we're also studying inflammatory bowel disease for this product. And that's a really interesting point you make, that it's not just people who are currently taking injections switching to the pill. As you mentioned, Tremfya continues to grow, I think up nearly 70%.
Wolk, J. (2026, October 13). J&J raises its forecast again. CFO Joe Wolk on what's driving it [Interview transcript]. Yahoo Finance. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3055346/
MLA
Joseph Wolk. "J&J raises its forecast again. CFO Joe Wolk on what's driving it." Yahoo Finance, 13 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3055346/.
BibTeX
@misc{wolk2026_3055346,
author = {Joseph Wolk},
title = {J\&J raises its forecast again. CFO Joe Wolk on what's driving it},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Yahoo Finance. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3055346/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
