Health care giant Johnson & Johnson was one of the first major drug manufacturer to report its third quarter revenue and profit, with figures that surpassed Wall Street estimates. Marked increases in prescription drugs sales triggered its strong performance.
Revenues in pharmaceutical drugs increased by 9.2% amounting to $8.4 billion because of high demand levels for Xarelto, a blood thinner and two cancer drugs, Darzalex and Imbruca.
One of the company's biggest winners was Remicade, an auto immune drug which sold $1.78 billion, an increase of 10.5%. The company expects to face competition for the product in the United States in the years to come.
Pfizer is launching a similar version of the Remicade in November at a discount of 15% off from existing wholesale prices. Prizer's brand for its product is Inflectra, which is now available in Europe and other markets and was recently approved by U.S. health authorities for distribution in the United States.
As of the present time, Johnson & Johnson expects no competition for Remicade from a similar drug within the year.
The company has adjusted its minimum profit range from $6.68 to $6.63 per share and fixed its upper range at $6.73 per share, for the yearend forecast.
With a wide product range from Band-Aid to Tylenol to its latest brand of contact lenses, Acuvue, Johnson & Johnson sold $6.16 billion of medical devices and $3.26 billion in consumer goods in the third quarter of this year.
The company is expanding its product lines to include devices for trauma surgery and artificial knees. It has also recently agreed to purchase the medical optics division of Abbot Laboratories for $4.3 billion.
According to Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, the company is introducing 10 new pharmaceutical drugs with projected sales of more than $10 billion in the next three to four years.
Its 2016 third quarter profits and revenues have surpassed all expectations.
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