Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So when it comes to STELARA, we had also a very robust growth of close to 16%. In that case, there is a prior period adjustment in the quarter a year ago that represents about 600 basis points. So you should take that into consideration when you think about the STELARA growth. We are very pleased overall, as I said, with our immunology portfolio. Overall, our immunology portfolio in the quarter grew 12.4%, which is very strong considering that we also have headwinds there of REMICADE biosimilars. And we remain very excited about the immunology portfolio as a key driver for J&J. Our Innovative Medicines are going to be bringing significant improvements in IBD with TREMFYA as I recall, but also staying there, we have our target oral peptide which is going to be presenting some data soon that we already presented data in psoriasis.

And also, we have the combination of [Technical Difficulty] and golimumab in IBD, which has presented also groundbreaking result, so very encouraged about our immunology portfolio and the ability to drive growth in the second-half of the decade more to be seen in our EBR later in the year.

Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Danielle Antalffy from UBS. Your line is now live.

Danielle Antalffy: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for taking the question. Ahmet, I wanted to actually bring you into the conversation here and ask about some of the innovation in MedTech and specifically, you guys have an Ottava Day coming up. And just curious what you can say about, a, what we get to see, obviously, appreciating you’re not going to totally open the kimono and front run the day? But b, and probably most importantly, sort of, where you see Ottava ultimately fitting into the robotics landscape and helping contribute to a continued move higher robotics penetration? Thanks so much.

Ahmet Tezel: So first of all, thank you for the question. Similar to John, this is my first call as well. So really excited to be here, equally excited to be leading a team of talented scientists, engineers and physicians as we do smarter less invasive and more personalized solutions for our patients. So with respect to Ottava, we have made great progress on the platform. The team is really focused on combining a really differentiated architecture based on its software and hardware together with our best-in-class instruments, and we believe that combination of a differentiated architecture with instruments is going to enable us to have high value from day one. Now we will have more updates on Ottava next month, as you mentioned.

And at that time, we will provide a lot more detail. But the one point I’ll make is that even today, robotic-assisted surgery penetration is in single-digits. So there’s still a lot of growth left in that segment. And we’re really excited because Ottava brings a lot of differentiation. So we’re very excited that we can make a big kind of path. We can open our path and growth there in that segment as well.

Joaquin Duato: Danielle, if I may interject here on Ottava. I’ve been in touch with multiple surgeons around the world. And one common comment that I find is that they all want. They are rooting for Johnson & Johnson to come into the robotic surgical space. They want to have the service and the support that they have accustomed doing decades with our Ethicon business and they also want to be able to utilize the advanced instruments with whom they have grown. So what I see in the surgical space is that the surgeons want to have alternatives and they are all looking forward to having Johnson & Johnson play an important role in robotic surgery.

Jessica Moore: Thank you, Danielle. We have time for one last question.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question today is coming from Louise Chen from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now live.

Louise Chen: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask you on the FLORA 2 results, if they impacted at all your thinking on your market opportunity for MARIPOSA and why or why not? Thank you.

Ahmet Tezel: No, I don’t think it influences because it’s really important to pay attention not only to progression-free survival, but also overall survival as well as the PFS-2 the survival in the second line of therapy. Unfortunately, with today’s therapies, almost all lung cancer patients will eventually relapse. They will need a second line therapy. And we think chemo was best reserved for that circumstance where the patient now has failed the frontline targeted therapies. So I would really say, pay attention to overall survival, pay attention to that progression free survival to endpoint, because these are going to be, I think, really things that matter in terms of what the long-term outcome is for patients with EGF receptor mutant lung cancer.

The — we believe based on the data we’ll present in the Presidential session at ESMO that the combination of RYBREVANT are bispecific antibody, the first bispecific ever approved for a solid tumor indication in elderly human as well as the third-generation small molecule oral EGF receptor Lazertinib, which is brain penetrant over mine. We believe that, that will become the new frontline standard-of-care for EGF receptor mutant lung cancer and offer patients durable remissions that are achieved in a chemo-free regimen.

Operator: Thank you.

Jessica Moore: Thank you, and thanks to everyone for your questions and your continued interest in our company. We apologize to those that we couldn’t get to because of time, but don’t hesitate to reach out to the Investor Relations team with any remaining questions you may have. I will now turn the call back to Joaquin for some brief closing remarks.