Should You Judge JNJ Stock Without STELARA?

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has been a rewarding stock to hold, up about 53% over the past year against about 17% for the S&P 500. The change worth noticing over that stretch is quieter than the price. Management said sales still rose 5.6% despite a STELARA drag of about 460 basis points. Management is encouraging investors to evaluate the company’s underlying momentum by presenting growth rates that exclude STELARA alongside its reported figures.

Management Still Puts A Number On The STELARA Drag

A year and a half ago, that drag was the headline. Management’s own framing of the first quarter of 2025 noted an approximate 810 basis point headwind on Innovative Medicine sales.

By the second quarter of 2026, that segment-level drag remained heavy at roughly 760 basis points (or about 460 basis points across the total enterprise), yet management’s emphasis shifted to highlighting double-digit operational growth excluding STELARA

The exclusion is not a rounding adjustment. STELARA sales fell 55.7% in the second quarter of 2026, and management put that drag at about 460 basis points of the whole company’s 5.6% operational sales growth.

So What Is Filling The Hole STELARA Left?

Two products show what the replacement looks like. TREMFYA booked $2 billion of sales in the second quarter of 2026, up over 70%, and management says ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are the major drivers of that growth. ICOTYDE, a recently launched once-daily pill for psoriasis, is the second, which leadership has highlighted as a key pipeline priority for the immunology business.

TREMFYA’s $2 billion sits against $25.3 billion of worldwide sales in the same quarter. The replacement is real, and it is still young. That is the honest case for reading growth without STELARA, and also the reason to keep the all-in number in view.

Judge J&J On The Rate That Still Includes STELARA

The all-in rate is the one a holder actually owns. That rate ran 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026, while management’s raised full-year 2026 operational guide is 6.5% to 7.1%. Those cover different periods. The gap is a second half that management expects to run faster than the first. The verdict rests on how far the quarterly rate climbs from here.

Part of that lift comes from the calendar, not from a product. The 2026 financial year carries a 53rd week worth about 100 basis points of growth, and it lands in the fourth quarter. So the clean read is the third quarter of 2026, due to report on October 13, with no extra week in it. The guided range includes that week’s benefit. Strip it out and the comparable rate is about 5.5% to 6.1%, so the third quarter has to clear that, not the headline range.

If all-in operational growth moves toward the guided range, it will demonstrate that the ex-STELARA metric reflected core underlying momentum rather than an artificially favorable picture. Management raising its 2026 outlook is a fair reason to extend some benefit of the doubt, and guidance that is actually climbing is worth checking company by company.

Unanswered Questions Cost The Biggest Holders The Most

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