The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Terence Flynn - Morgan Stanley - Analyst
: Great. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Appreciate it. Obviously, myeloma franchise is a very important growth driver as
we think about history, but also 2025. So just wondering if you can kind of frame for us how you're thinking about that, both from
the bispecifics as well as CAR-T and maybe a broadening into the community setting and the pace of growth here as we think about
the ramp in '25. Thank you.
Question: Josh Jennings - TD Cowen - Analyst
: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. I was hoping to just ask about the medical device or the sector, the business,
excuse me. And just the acquisition strategy, you've had a couple of pre-revenue swings with Laminar and V-Wave and some other
more established more established businesses under the roof. Can you just talk about the strategy on a go-forward basis? I mean,
is it going to continue to be a mix between pre-revenue companies and formally more fully established businesses? Or are you going
to be -- is there going to be a shift in that strategy? Thanks for taking the question.
Question: Alexandria Hammond - Wolfe Research - Analyst
: Thanks so much for taking the question and congrats on the Intra-Cellular deal last week. For CAPLYTA, how should we be thinking
about the cadence of sales growth to the forecasted sales of $5 billion? And I guess on the acquisition, should we expect a
deprioritization of seltorexant and aticaprant? Thank you so much.
Question: Tim Anderson - BofA Global Research - Analyst
: Thank you very much. I have a question on immunology franchise and TREMFYA. So with STELARA facing biosimilars, I'm wondering
if it might play out like how it has with AbbVie. So in the case of AbbVie, they said that biosimilar Humira has actually driven the
volume shifts in favor of other brands like Skyrizi. I'm wondering if you expect that could occur with TREMFYA on the volume side.
And then on the price side, can you talk about incremental price erosion in 2025 to maintain access relative to whatever the price
erosion was in 2024.
Question: Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC - Analyst
: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Tim, how are you thinking about the growth of the med tech market in 2025 and J&J
relative to the market? And what are you assuming for the EP business and VARIPULSE. Thanks for taking the question.
Question: Chris Schott - JPMorgan - Analyst
: Great. Thanks so much. I just had a two-parter on operating margins. I think you mentioned in the remarks about 150 basis points
of improvement this year in process R&D. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on what's enabling that despite the lower top line
growth and some of the negative product mix from STELARA. I guess, I'm trying to get at, should we be expecting OpEx to be down
this year embedded in that guide?
And the second part was just beyond this year. Just help us think about the cadence of margin expansion as we think about 26 and
beyond and top line reaccelerates. Thank you.
Question: David Roman - Goldman Sachs - Analyst
: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. It's on behalf of Chris Shibutani and myself here. I wanted to come back to just the overall
MedTech strategy. And I appreciate that you exited the year over the 7% number that you had previously communicated as the high
end of the range. But when you pick that apart a little bit, clearly, a big percentage of that does come from M&A, I think with ex M&A,
the organic number being below the 5% to 7%.
So can you maybe just walk through a little bit how you think about the organic investment in the business versus inorganic
contribution to that number long term, especially when you start to look at some of the more established franchises of that surgery
or orthopedics on your end market? And then if I just speak in accounting one on one here. I just want to confirm there is no revenue
recognition reversal charges in the EP numbers this quarter for VARIPULSE.
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