Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies

Merck stole the show at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) annual conference, with new data on its Moderna-partnered personalized cancer vaccine leaking prior to the presentation and antibody-drug conjugate sac-TMT making a splash in endometrial cancer; Bristol Myers Squibb revealed the death of a patient with multiple sclerosis in an early-stage trial of zola-cel; and pharma is on track to easily surpass last year’s deal count.

The largest pharmas have a collective $188 billion in firepower to spend on M&A transactions, with all but one signaling a desire to execute, according to a new analysis from Leerink Partners.

JNJ-6143, which came from Johnson & Johnson’s $3 billion takeover of Halda Therapeutics in 2025, showed a 75% overall response rate in the Phase 1 readout.

China cracks down on some biotechnology ownership transfers—but will the new policy impact licensing deals?; Disc Medicine’s Phase 3 data sweep redeems rejected rare disease therapy, teeing up another FDA run; and the ESMO conference gets underway in Madrid this week, with much-anticipated data from Merck, and Summit Therapeutics.

Johnson & Johnson beat analyst expectations in the third quarter but left Wall Street wanting more; BMS dominated the news cycle on Monday with a Phase 3 win validating its $4.1 billion RayzeBio buy and mixed data in a late-stage pulmonary fibrosis trial; Revolution Medicines’ newly approved pancreatic cancer drug works better for patients with certain mutations; and Caribou Biosciences may be on its way out.

While innovative medicine supported Johnson & Johnson’s “in line” earnings for the third quarter of 2026, investors were disappointed to see older medicines carrying the bag.

Big Pharma companies including Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis are among those that made or planned layoffs in Q3. Those cuts could affect over 1,800 employees, with New Jersey the hardest-hit state.

Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Argenx and more are unlocking new immunology targets and looking to improve on existing ones in an attempt to catch some of the magic brought about by AbbVie’s Humira and Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent.

Ten patients out of 20 who received Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech’s Carvykti remained alive at five years of follow up.