Johnson & Johnson
Rank
3
Rank 2 in 2016
Score
3.05
Performance
Falls 1 place to 3rd. Remains a leader in access through both its Global Public Health unit and its strong approach to Capacity Building. It slips in part as its access approach focuses on a narrower set of diseases in scope compared to other companies.
Management
Rises two places to 4th, with a robust internal structure for ensuring senior responsibility for access.
Compliance
Falls three places to 9th, against stronger performance of peers in internal controls for compliance.
R&D
Falls 1 place to 4th, in part due to a lower proportion of late-stage projects with access plans compared to the other leaders, despite a solid performance overall.
Pricing
Falls from 2nd to 10th place due to comparatively small proportion of portfolio that is covered by equitable pricing strategies.
Patents
Rises from 7th to 5th place, supported by the increased transparency of its patents held in low- and middle-income countries.
Capacity
Rises to 2nd place, with initiatives meeting all good practice standards in all areas of capacity building.
Donations
Falls from 3rd to 9th place associated in part due to poorer public transparency for some donation programmes.
Opportunities
Continue to expand its Global Public Health access approach. During the period of analysis, Johnson & Johnson successfully incorporated an additional disease area (mental health) into the ambit of its Global Public Health unit. The company can continue to review its portfolio and pipeline to consider additional priority areas for action, e.g., diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Establish access plans for all late-stage R&D projects. Johnson & Johnson can further apply the approach of its Global Public Health unit and establish access plans for all of its late-stage R&D projects, especially projects addressing a priority gap, to ensure broader access to more patients as soon as possible following market approval.
Focus on registering key products in countries in scope. The company’s participation in the WHO’s Collaborative Procedure for Accelerated Registration is a promising step towards faster registration of new products. The company can apply lessons from this pilot to help expedite registration of other recently launched products in more priority countries.
Extend pledge not to enforce patent rights, and its engagement in voluntary licensing. Johnson & Johnson can extend its pledge not to enforce IP rights to more high-need products beyond darunavir (Prezista®). Likewise, Johnson & Johnson can expand its use of non-exclusive voluntary licensing to ensure access to and supply of more of its on-patent products listed on the 2017 WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (WHO EML).
Scale up well-structured initiatives. Johnson & Johnson's Born on Time initiative seeks to address the factors that can lead to preterm birth. It meets all good practice standards looked for by the Index. There is an opportunity for Johnson & Johnson to extend its commitment to this initiative, which is currently set to end in 2020, to support the expansion of activities to more countries which have expressed a need (the initiative is currently running in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Mali). Countries in scope with the highest burden of preterm birth are Nigeria, Pakistan and India.
Change since 2016
- Joined Access Accelerated with multiple initiatives such as Helping Babies Breathe and Born on Time.
- Published Health for Humanity report with progress on Access to Medicine initiatives, and data was independently verified.
- Launched a new pilot programme in Rwanda focused on improving access to mental health care.
- Discloses publicly the patent statuses for small molecules in scope via the Pat-INFORMED platform.
- Strengthened its process to develop access provisions during development using a Value, Access and Pricing (VAP) framework to assess affordability of all R&D projects, with access plans being established from Phase II onwards.
- Expanded Johnson & Johnson Innovation for global public health to accelerate R&D for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, maternal and child health and other diseases through unique inter-sector partnerships
Pipeline and Portfolio
for diseases and countries in scope
Pipeline
Comparatively large pipeline: 138* R&D projects for diseases in scope (111 medicines; 17 preventive vaccines; 6 diagnostics; 4 therapeutic vaccines).
Clinical candidates: 70, including a mosaic HIV-1 preventive vaccine candidate and pimodivir for the treatment of influenza type A, both in Phase II.
Regulatory approvals: 9, including mebendazole (Vermox™ Chewable) for the treatment of soil-transmitted helminthiasis in children and adults.
R&D focus: non-communicable diseases (cancer and diabetes mellitus), communicable diseases (lower respiratory infections and HIV/AIDS) and neglected tropical diseases (dengue).
Access provisions: for 14 projects, most commonly registration commitments.
Portfolio
Mid-sized portfolio: 57 products for diseases in scope (45 medicines; 5 contraceptive methods; 5 diagnostics; 2 preventive vaccines).
Portfolio focus: non-communicable diseases (diabetes mellitus and schizophrenia), communicable diseases (HIV/AIDS) and maternal & neonatal health conditions (contraceptive methods).
Essential medicines: 44% of Johnson & Johnson's medicines and vaccines are currently listed on the 2017 WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (WHO EML).
First-line treatments: 50% of Johnson & Johnson's medicines and vaccines have first-line indications for diseases in scope.
Business context
Three business units: Consumer Healthcare; Pharmaceuticals; and Medical Devices. The pharmaceutical segment has six therapeutic areas (immunology; infectious diseases and vaccines; neuroscience; oncology; cardiovascular diseases; and metabolism and pulmonary hypertension).
M&A news: 2017 acquisition of Actelion Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company specialising in drugs for unmet high priority medical needs.
Presence in emerging markets: In the 2018 Index, Johnson & Johnson is one of the companies with sales in the highest number of countries in scope. It reports sales in 85 countries in scope; 16 more countries than in the 2016 Index. It reports that almost 20% of its sales in 2017 came from Asia-Pacific and Africa.
*Projects that target multiple product types are counted more than once.
**Figure excludes 6 projects that do not fall into the listed phases of development: e.g., technical lifecycle projects, diagnostics, platform technologies, vector control products, investigator sponsored trials and Phase IV projects.
***Neglected Tropical Diseases, while also communicable, are highlighted separately throughout the Index. See Appendix II.
†See Appendix IV for definition.