BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

July 19, 2004 7:00 AM UTC

Last week's earnings announcement from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) again showed a declining trajectory for its EPO products, reflecting competition from Aranesp from Amgen(AMGN). Indeed, JNJ's Procrit/Eprex drugs showed a steeper sales decline in the second quarter than in the first quarter.

But JNJ said it's not ready to throw in the towel, and on its conference call last week the company laid out a framework by which it hopes to return Procrit/Eprex to growth. In a multi-pronged approach, the pharma company wants to expand the use of its products in acute care patients and crack open the chronic care market. ...