Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) shares dipped slightly before hours today on fourth-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
Shares of JNJ fell more than 3% to $143.36 apiece in morning trading today.
The New Brunswick, New Jersey–based medtech giant reported profits of $3.4 billion. That equals $1.41 per share on sales of $22.52 billion for the three months ended Dec. 29, 2024.
Johnson & Johnson recorded a 17% bottom-line slide on a sales increase of 5.25%.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share came in at $2.04. That landed 2¢ ahead of expectations on Wall Street. Sales Sales also topped estimates as experts forecast $22.45 billion in revenue.
J&J MedTech registered 6.7% quarterly sales growth, with revenues coming in at nearly $8.2 billion. For the full year, sales grew by 6.2%, with net acquisitions and divestitures positively impacting growth by 1.5%. The company attributed growth to electrophysiology products and its Abiomed unit in the Cardiovascular business. Wound closure products in General Surgery also spurred growth.
“2024 was a transformative year for Johnson & Johnson, marked by strong growth, an accelerating pipeline and industry-leading investments in innovation,” said Joaquin Duato, chair and CEO. “As a healthcare company, with a disease-centric approach, we are improving the standard of care in a broad range of diseases with high unmet need, including multiple myeloma, lung cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and heart failure.
Duato said the company’s strong financial foundation, differentiated portfolio and robust pipeline make it well positioned to sustain its high pace of growth and innovation.
The company expects to report sales between $89.2 billion and $90 billion in 2025. It projects adjusted EPS to land between $10.50 and $10.70 for the year.
The analysts’ take
Baird analysts Jeff D. Johnson and David Rescott called the company’s earnings results “mixed to positive.”
They called the company’s 2025 commentary around the MedTech business “generally encouraging,” citing more normalized patient volumes as backlogs wind down.
The analysts remain mixed on the orthopedics, contact lenses, vision and surgical markets. However, they view electrophysiology and soft tissue surgical robotics markets as positive.
Johnson and Rescott say recent U.S. FDA IDE approval for the company’s Ottava surgical robot opens the door to begin clinical trials, as expected, to help propel the company in the surgical robotics space. For Johnson & Johnson, EP remains up in the air, though.
Earlier this month, the company “temporarily paused” all U.S. cases using its Varipulse pulsed field ablation (PFA) system. Much like the reaction at the time, analysts believe this opens the door for Boston Scientific and Medtronic, the only two other companies with FDA approvals for PFA technology that treats AFib, to increase share.
The Baird analysts said: “The company continues to work through the U.S. Varipulse pause, with no clear return-to-market timing, representing a clear near-to-intermediate share gain opportunity for [Boston Scientific/Medtronic], and potentially longer-term.”
MedTech Chair Tim Schmid said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the company continues working with the FDA on the Varipulse pause.