Bellwether Johnson & Johnson will kick off the third quarter earnings reporting period on Tuesday, with analysts searching for news on business development, launch execution and more.
An open fundraising window, retreating policy pressure and a soaring biotech stock index are bringing a fresh breath of air across the biopharma world as the sector heads into the third quarter earnings reporting period.
Potential deals and launch execution will be the tale of the quarter, analysts have declared. In terms of M&A, the industry has already exceeded 2025’s tally of $136 billion across 57 deals, Truist Securities wrote at the end of September. Many potential takeout targets have undergone a re-rating, which means rising valuations could stir up dealmaking behind the scenes.
“We note the sector’s cheap optionality—the names trading below cash, and the outsized takeout premiums that defined 2025—has largely been priced out, which to us reflects re-rated targets and not cheaper assets,” Truist Securities wrote last week.
Therefore, pharma CEOs in particular should expect business development expectations for the final quarter of this year to dominate the conversation for this Q3 earnings season. Buyers will increasingly be looking to validated biotech targets with near-term data readouts plus differentiated profiles, Truist said.
As always, Johnson & Johnson will kick off the earnings period, with a conference call scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here, we look ahead to a handful of company announcements that analysts will be watching carefully.
How is RevMed’s Rasonque launch going?
Truist is watching a few names closely heading into the fourth quarter. Top of the list is Revolution Medicines, which will likely be able to claim the biggest success story of 2026. The company’s pancreatic cancer medicine finally broke through the intractable disease, swiftly earning an FDA greenlight after doubling survival in a Phase 3 trial.
Now, RevMed will be reporting initial launch numbers for the therapy. Truist expects the Q3 report to include about $14 million in initial sales for the drug, now known as Rasonque. This falls just short of the consensus estimate of $20 million. Nevertheless, the launch has so far been heralded a success by analysts, including Truist.
If the trajectory continues, RevMed, with its first approved medicine, could be on the way to $100 million or more in sales for this year, according to Truist.
Key opinion leaders have been bullish on the therapy, informing Truist that all available patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma are getting access to treatment with no payer pushback. The firm therefore boosted expectations for 2026 from $102 million to $113 million. Back in September, Truist projected $13.8 billion in peak revenue for Rasonque.
But RevMed has been vague with what it has shared about the new drug, Truist pointed out. “Management is understandably more guarded on where the launch stands, has not indicated which metrics it will share and continues to characterize demand as healthy.”
Investors, therefore, will be eagerly listening for any details on RevMed’s upcoming earnings call.
Jazz aims big with GEA label expansion
Jazz Pharmaceuticals is “firing on all cylinders” thanks to Ziihera, which in August added a new indication for unresectable or metastatic HER2+ advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma (GEA). Truist anticipates topline earnings for the quarter of $1.22 billion, just above consensus of about $1.21 billion.
The company is expected to take an $800 million in-process R&D charge related to the $1.3 billion acquisition of Actio Biosciences from August.
Ziihera, which was already cleared for a certain type of biliary track cancer, is expected to reach peak sales of between $3–5 billion, according to executives. This value rose from a $2 billion peak after the GEA approval.
Truist and investors will be looking for information on the early launch dynamics and how Jazz expects to reach a predicted 8,000 U.S. patients despite just 3,000–4,000 having confirmed HER2+ disease validated by testing.
Attendees to the Q3 call will also be keenly listening for any further deal talks after the Actio takeout.
Ultragenyx: A tale of two launches
Ultragenyx also has some exciting launch news to share after snagging FDA approvals earlier this year for the rare disease gene therapies Fayuvi and Genglycos, William Blair noted.
The company heads into the reporting period having sold a priority review voucher (PRV) for a cool $210 million thanks to a hot market for the regulatory fast passes. Ultragenyx earned a PRV each for Fayuvi and Genglycos, meaning the biotech still holds one. Executives plan to hold onto it for now and sell in the future.
Elsewhere, Ultragenyx is currently executing an expense reduction plan that aims to help the biotech achieve profitability in 2027.
Others to watch
Merck will report on sales figures for rising products Winrevair and Keytruda Qlex, Guggenheim said last week. But investors will really be watching for scraps of news for the pharma’s major clinical quarter to come. Merck will report full data for two upcoming oncology assets at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Madrid, Spain between October 23-27: its Moderna-partnered personalized mRNA-based cancer vaccine intismeran autogene and an investigational antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) called sac-TMT that the pharma licensed from Kelun-Biotech. Besides the earnings call on October 29, Merck will host an investor call alongside the ESMO conference on Oct 26.
Other companies for which business development will be key topics include Regeneron, Amgen and J&J, according to analysts.
