Latest news with #JohnsonAndJohnson
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Boston Scientific lifts 2025 outlook following 29% Q2 cardiovascular profit rise
Boston Scientific has raised its 2025 profit outlook to between $2.95 and $2.99 per share amid strong Q2 performance in its cardiovascular unit, driven in large part by the uptake of its Farapulse pulsed field ablation (PFA) system. The company now anticipates an adjusted profit of $2.95 to $2.99 per share for 2025, raising its previous guidance of $2.87 to $2.94. Boston Scientific's financials revealed total sales of more than $5bn in Q2 2025, representing a 22.8% rise on Q2 2024 at $4.12bn, with shares in the company rising by over 4% following the result's announcement. The majority of the quarter's profits emanated from the US-based company's cardiovascular unit at $3.34bn – representing a 26.8% increase on the unit's Q2 2024 performance at $2.63bn. GlobalData medical analyst David Beauchamp noted that since its emergence, PFA has displaced most other approaches to treating atrial fibrillation (AFib) such as radiofrequency (RF) and cryoablation. Meanwhile, Boston Scientific only has competition in the space from Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson (J&J). Boston Scientific gained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval on Farapulse in January 2024, a month after Medtronic's approval for its PulseSelect PFA system. J&J secured approval for its Varipulse PFA system in November 2024. Beauchamp said: 'Boston Scientific also has had widespread success with their WATCHMAN series of left atrial appendage closure devices. 'It's not shocking to see them increasing their profit expectations, as they have been consistently successful for years and their device quality is very high.' Elsewhere across the business, Boston Scientific reported a 26.9% rise to $676m in its urology unit, up from $525m in Q2 2024. The company's peripheral intervention division also saw a significant increase of 18.3% to $698m versus $590m in Q2 2024. Boston Scientific's chairman and CEO Mike Mahoney commented: 'This was another excellent quarter – marked by exceptional top-line performance – that delivered margin expansion and prioritised investment for future growth.' Reflecting on the quarter during an earnings call with analysts, the company's CFO John Monson said that sales for medical device makers such as Boston Scientific had been boosted due to a growth in surgical procedures, thereby helping ameliorate broader concerns about healthcare spending concerning the Trump administration's proposed tariffs. However, Monson commented: "Based on the current schedule of expected tariffs, we now anticipate a full-year headwind of about $100m, down from a $200m estimate.' According to GlobalData analysis, months after the approval of Farapulse and Medtronic's PulseSelect, physicians in the US had already started displaying a much stronger preference for Farapulse over PulseSelect. J&J also released its Q2 2025 financials last week, reporting a 7.3% rise in its Medtech unit on Q2 2024 to around $8.54m. Since its FDA approval in 2024, J&J's Varipulse PFA system has clearly had an effect on the Medtech unit's performance, albeit to a lesser extent than Farapulse given that Boston Scientific's PFA system has had a slight head start in the market. "Boston Scientific lifts 2025 outlook following 29% Q2 cardiovascular profit rise" was originally created and published by Medical Device Network, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Talc Is Suddenly in the Spotlight. Is it Bad for You?
Credit - Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Images: Liudmila Chernetska—Getty Images, LanaSweet/Getty Images) Federal health officials are scrutinizing a mineral—added to some makeup, medications, and foods—that many people have never thought twice about: talc. In a recent viewpoint article called 'Priorities for a New FDA,' published in the medical journal JAMA, Dr. Martin Makary, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Vinay Prasad, the FDA's Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, wrote that the FDA conducted an expert panel on talc in May. They also noted that some companies have removed talc from baby powder because it's a carcinogen. Johnson & Johnson, for example, stopped using talc in 2023 following more than 60,000 legal claims from ovarian cancer patients. The JAMA article added that talc remains common, since people still 'ingest it regularly' as an ingredient in various medications and foods. Despite the lawsuits, though, research hasn't confirmed whether talc causes cancer, especially when consumed through food. Meanwhile, companies continue to use talc in powders and cosmetics. Here's how people get exposed to talc, the potential health risks, and what to do about them. Talc and asbestos A naturally occurring mineral, talc consists of several elements like magnesium and silicon. When ground into fine particles, talc becomes talcum powder, which works to absorb moisture and soothe the skin. People have used cosmetics and powders with talc for more than a century. Before talc is mined by companies from deep within the earth, it mixes with another mineral, asbestos. This often results in talc's contamination with asbestos, which is proven to cause cancer. Talc, when laced with asbestos, is a carcinogen, especially when it's inhaled. Less clear is the cancer-causing potential of talc when it's not contaminated. In theory, talc on its own could drive cancer because its particles create inflammation when inhaled or migrating into the body after talc is applied to skin, according to Joellen Schildkraut, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. 'Inflammation can promote cancer,' Schildkraut says. 'Many studies have shown an association.' Some research shows that asbestos-free talc leads to tumors in animals, but animals reveal little about ovarian cancer in humans, Schildkraut says. Read More: The Race to Explain Why More Young Adults Are Getting Cancer Regardless, it's impossible for consumers to learn if products with talc are contaminated. Since the 1970s, companies have tested talc voluntarily, but the methods aren't sensitive enough to detect asbestos in their products—and the FDA doesn't require proof that they're asbestos-free. 'This means a lot of contaminated talc likely went through without anybody detecting the asbestos,' Schildkraut says. Using better tests, researchers have spot-checked whether cosmetics are asbestos-laced. From 1948 to 2017, two-thirds of these tests (conducted as part of litigation) came up positive for asbestos, typically in trace amounts. In 2020, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found asbestos contaminated 15% of makeup samples with talc. In 2023, the FDA detected no asbestos in 50 talc-containing cosmetics. (The agency didn't reply to TIME's request for comment.) However, conclusions can't be drawn about the entire market from these checks because they involved small sample sizes, says Kaley Beins, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. Later this year, the FDA is expected to finalize a new rule aimed at improving companies' testing methods. Ovarian cancer risk Some data show links between cancer of the ovaries and a specific type of talc exposure: the use of baby powder in intimate areas for personal hygiene. But the findings have been mixed. In a June letter to Makary, several talc researchers—some with ties to companies that make products with talc—criticized the recent FDA roundtable on talc's health impacts. The roundtable discussions, the authors wrote, were skewed because they 'included several paid plaintiff-side experts in talc-related litigation' without any defense-side experts. The letter says that studies involving several different groups of women have found only very weak associations with ovarian cancer. Schildkraut—an expert participant in the May roundtable without any ties to the lawsuits—notes that some of these studies involved relatively few women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It's possible there simply wasn't enough data to yield stronger evidence. However, in 2020, scientists pooled together data from groups studied previously and still found no significant link. Read More: Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is An important factor is that 'people may not be good at reporting their personal talc use,' says Katie O'Brien, a staff scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Studies and lead author of the 2020 research. In another study last year, she tried to correct for reporting errors while reanalyzing data from over 50,000 women and found that frequent users of talcum powder did have higher risk of ovarian cancer. 'This type of research doesn't determine causation,' says Schildkraut, who emphasized the same point during the public roundtable. 'But we do see a consistent relationship.' The self-report issue noted by O'Brien could extend to powder use for babies. 'People may not know whether baby powder was used on them,' O'Brien explains. Meanwhile, some laboratory research shows that human ovarian cancer cells, when exposed to talc, have more inflammation and cellular growth, mechanisms that can fuel cancer. Read More: Inflammation May Be the Culprit Behind Our Deadliest Diseases But Jennifer Permuth, an epidemiologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center who has served as an expert witness for J&J and signed the letter to Makary, questions how talc would migrate from where it's applied to cause cancer in the ovaries—without causing cancer in other organs along the way, such as the cervix. 'We would expect cancer to also develop in those other organs,' but studies find only weak links to these cancers, says Permuth. In a 2024 review, the World Health Organization found that, overall, evidence doesn't prove talc causes cancer, but it's 'probably carcinogenic.' The review focused on ovarian cancer 'because that's where the most evidence was' compared to other cancers, says Schildkraut, who served on the review committee. Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society states that, if there's an increased cancer risk, it's 'likely to be very small.' The E.U. has designated talc as a carcinogen, and it's expected to ban talc from cosmetics in 2027. Other potential health issues There's less research on other health issues related to talc. Some studies suggest that when miners repeatedly inhale talc, even if it's asbestos-free, their risk of lung cancer increases—but evidence on inhaling baby powder is more limited. In addition, a deadly cancer called mesothelioma is closely linked to asbestos exposure, though links to talc are less clear (partly because mesothelioma is extremely rare). Read More: What to Expect at a Mammogram Karen Selby, a patient advocate for the Mesothelioma Center at team of advocates, doctors, and attorneys supporting people with mesothelioma—works with patients who developed the disease decades after early-life exposure to cosmetics, she says. Every Christmas as a kid, Selby got a new box of cosmetic powder to play with. She'd cover herself and act like Casper the Friendly Ghost. She doesn't have mesothelioma, but recalling the haze of talc dust, she sometimes thinks, 'Holy cow, what was I doing to myself?' These makeup kits often have cheaper ingredients like asbestos-contaminated talc, despite that 'children are a susceptible group in environmental health,' says Beins, the Environmental Working Group scientist. 'I would try to keep talc away from them.' Safety precautions As researchers continue to study talc, Beins recommends using products with talc substitutes like cornstarch. (That's what J&J now uses instead of talc.) 'We can acknowledge the uncertainty and use safer alternatives,' Beins says. The Environmental Working Group has a database called Skin Deep that tracks which cosmetics contain ingredients like talc. Currently, the database lists about 150,000 products, and 8,000 have talc, Beins estimates. 'I wouldn't use talc personally,' Schildkraut says. 'It's not worth the risk because you don't need much exposure to asbestos to develop cancer.' Read More: 6 Things to Eat to Reduce Your Cancer Risk If possible, try passing on baby powders in general. Even if they lack talc, 'there may be other chemicals of concern,' such as ones added for fragrance or texture, O'Brien notes. If you've been exposed to talc for decades—whether through personal product use or occupations that often involve talc, like those in hair care—share this information with your doctors. They may recommend screening for ovarian cancer and other conditions, O'Brien says. What about food and medicine? Talc is commonly added to several foods like chewing gum and candy to keep them from sticking to wrappers and caking together. However, relatively few foods have talc. 'It's there and present sometimes, but it's not in a ton of food,' Beins says. To find which foods contain talc, you can search EWG's Food Scores, which tracks ingredients. Out of 80,000 products in the database, only 39 are currently listed to contain talc. In addition, the Environmental Working Group's Verified program certifies brands that meet its strictest health standards. To be certified, brands must disclose their ingredients, provide testing data, and avoid ingredients of concern. Products with talc can't be certified. Read More: Why Food Chemicals Are a Problem—And How to Reduce Your Exposure Talc is also added to some pill coatings because it helps pills travel smoothly through manufacturing equipment during production. But very little is known about cancer risk from talc in either food or pills. 'There's some thought that gastrointestinal issues might happen due to food exposure, because it's pro-inflammatory,' Beins says. However, this effect is mostly theoretical at this point. 'For the sake of public health, we shouldn't raise false alarms and make people scared of their food and medications,' says Permuth, who researches gastrointestinal cancer. 'Frequent users of talc-based personal care products or cosmetics are at the highest risk,' O'Brien says, adding that there's no medical reason for using these products. Whereas other established environmental risks like air pollution may be hard to avoid, O'Brien notes that for the most part, the 'use of talc products is something that individuals can control.' Contact us at letters@ Solve the daily Crossword
CTV News
8 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Boston Scientific lifts annual profit view on steady heart devices demand
Medical devices are seen at Ochsner Medical Center in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson, La., on Tuesday, Aug.11, 2021. (AP Photo/Stacey Plaisance) Boston Scientific raised its annual profit forecast on Wednesday, after strong demand for its heart devices helped the U.S. medical device maker beat second-quarter profit estimates. Shares of the Massachusetts-based company rose 2.3 per cent in premarket trading following the results. A rise in surgical procedures has benefited medical device manufacturers such as Boston Scientific, as it boosted sales and helped offset broader concerns about healthcare spending pressures. Analysts said hospital utilization trends were robust during the second quarter, with hospital checks pointing to high single-digit volume growth - well above the historical average. Boston Scientific's main growth drivers, Farapulse and Watchman, which use short high-voltage pulses to treat certain abnormal heart rhythm conditions, saw strong demand during the quarter. Farapulse, approved in the U.S. to treat certain patients with intermittent atrial fibrillation, competes with Johnson & Johnson's Varipulse and Medtronic's PulseSelect in the market for pulsed field ablation (PFA) systems. 'Cardiovascular end-markets remain robust,' Truist analyst Richard Newitter said ahead of the earnings, adding that Boston, followed by Medtronic, are in the best position at the moment to benefit from the growing and accelerating PFA market. Rival Johnson & Johnson last week posted strong medtech sales, aided by its heart devices, Varipulse and Trupulse. Boston Scientific expects 2025 adjusted profit of US$2.95 to US$2.99 per share, up from the prior view of US$2.87 to US$2.94 earlier. It posted adjusted profit of 75 cents per share for the second quarter, topping analysts' average estimate of 72 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. The company's cardiovascular unit reported quarterly sales of US$3.34 billion, surpassing estimates of US$3.20 billion. Revenue came in at US$5.06 billion for the quarter, topping estimates of US$4.9 billion. --- Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Jim Cramer on Johnson & Johnson: 'J&J is Just Beginning Its Move'
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is one of the stocks that Jim Cramer shed light on. Cramer was incredibly bullish on the company as he said: 'Now, sometimes in this game, you do just get lucky. You'll come across a surprise quarter that tells you everything you need to know about what can cause a big cap stock to rally 10 points in a session. You'll see how a star is born and even get a blueprint for what you need, what you should be looking for. Yesterday, we got a beautiful schematic from none other than Johnson & Johnson… which handed you a 10-point victory for the ages… This company put on a clinic that showed you exactly how you can orchestrate such a big gain… What does it take? Surprises, many surprises, that's what… Trong Nguyen / Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) develops, manufactures, and sells healthcare products, including prescription treatments across areas such as immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and cardiovascular disease, along with medical technologies used in surgery, orthopaedics, cardiovascular care, and vision correction. While we acknowledge the potential of JNJ as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Boston Scientific lifts annual profit view on steady heart devices demand
July 23 (Reuters) - Boston Scientific (BSX.N), opens new tab raised its annual profit forecast on Wednesday, after strong demand for its heart devices helped the U.S. medical device maker beat second-quarter profit estimates. Shares of the Massachusetts-based company rose 2.3% in premarket trading following the results. A rise in surgical procedures has benefited medical device manufacturers such as Boston Scientific, as it boosted sales and helped offset broader concerns about healthcare spending pressures. Analysts said hospital utilization trends were robust during the second quarter, with hospital checks pointing to high single-digit volume growth - well above the historical average. Boston Scientific's main growth drivers, Farapulse and Watchman, which use short high-voltage pulses to treat certain abnormal heart rhythm conditions, saw strong demand during the quarter. Farapulse, approved in the U.S. to treat certain patients with intermittent atrial fibrillation, competes with Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N), opens new tab Varipulse and Medtronic's (MDT.N), opens new tab PulseSelect in the market for pulsed field ablation (PFA) systems. "Cardiovascular end-markets remain robust," Truist analyst Richard Newitter said ahead of the earnings, adding that Boston, followed by Medtronic, are in the best position at the moment to benefit from the growing and accelerating PFA market. Rival Johnson & Johnson last week posted strong medtech sales, aided by its heart devices, Varipulse and Trupulse. Boston Scientific expects 2025 adjusted profit of $2.95 to $2.99 per share, up from the prior view of $2.87 to $2.94 earlier. It posted adjusted profit of 75 cents per share for the second quarter, topping analysts' average estimate of 72 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. The company's cardiovascular unit reported quarterly sales of $3.34 billion, surpassing estimates of $3.20 billion. Revenue came in at $5.06 billion for the quarter, topping estimates of $4.9 billion.
