Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented and cured, treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. We work to develop treatments, aspiring to find cures, pioneering the path from lab to life and championing patients every step of the way.
Innovation has been an essential part of the fabric of J&J for more than 135 years. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the tens of thousands of scientists, researchers, engineers, designers and clinicians, we have pioneered multiple breakthroughs to benefit health for humanity.
Oncology
While we are inspired by emerging new science and tangible progress in the elimination of cancer, we are driven by enormous global unmet medical needs that continue to persist in disease treatment. Cancer remains a leading cause of death globally.17 In 2023, we made breakthrough progress with new therapies for different types of cancer:
Multiple myeloma
Despite treatment advancements, management of multiple myeloma remains challenging. There is no cure and patients have few options to treat later-stage disease. In 2023, the FDA granted accelerated approval of TALVEY (talquetamab-tgvs), the first-in-class bispecific antibody therapy to target the receptor GPRC5D on multiple myeloma cells, as well as CD3 on T-cells for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least four prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent and an anti-CD38 antibody. This milestone marks the approval of J&J’s fifth innovative therapy in less than a decade and second bispecific antibody approved for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, further delivering on our commitment to address unmet needs for people who are living with this complex disease through a portfolio of first-in-class, complementary immunotherapies that target the disease in different ways.
Prostate cancer
While survival rates with metastatic prostate cancer have improved, fewer than one-third of patients survive 5 years after diagnosis.18 In 2023, the FDA and the European Commission approved our AKEEGA (niraparib in combination with abiraterone acetate), a poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, as a dual-action tablet, given with prednisone, for the treatment of patients with first-line metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and breast cancer (BRCA) gene mutations. This marks the approval of J&J’s third prostate cancer treatment and highlights the importance of advancing precision medicine approaches and genetic testing. Patients with BRCA-positive mCRPC can benefit from the new combination therapy, available in a dual-action tablet formulation that may improve adherence and reduce pill burden.
We will lead the pharmaceutical industry and transform the lives of millions of patients throughout the world by delivering breakthrough innovation to prevent, treat and cure some of the world’s most devastating diseases. At J&J Innovative Medicine, we will lead where medicine is going.”
Bladder cancer
In the U.S., about 800,000 people are living with bladder cancer,19 with limited treatment options. Our TAR-200, an investigational targeted releasing system in development, represents a novel approach for the treatment of bladder cancer and was granted FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation in 2023. This treatment innovation represents a pivotal step forward in our commitment to transform the way bladder cancer is treated.
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide, resulting in 1.8 million deaths every year,20 with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounting for 85% of all lung cancer cases.21 We are advancing important innovations and accelerating the development of new treatment regimens in an effort to transform the standard of care for patients. In three Phase 3 studies, RYBREVANT (amivantamab-vmjw) our internally discovered and developed bispecific antibody, was associated with improvement in progression-free survival. These pivotal study findings also served as the basis for three regulatory submissions to the FDA seeking to expand the use of RYBREVANT to help more patients with NSCLC.
17 WHO 2022 Cancer Fact Sheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer, accessed April 2022.
18 Pritchard C.C., Mateo J., Walsh M.F., et al, “Inherited DNA-Repair Gene Mutations in Men with Metastatic Prostate Cancer,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 2016;375(5):443-453, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1603144, accessed February 2024.
19 Urology Care Foundation, “Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer,” https://www.urologyhealth.org/healthy-living/urologyhealth-extra/magazine-archives/fall-2020/muscle-invasive-bladder-cancer, accessed February 2024.
20 Thandra K.C., Barsouk A., Saginala K., et al, “Epidemiology of lung cancer,” Contemp Oncol (Pozn), 2021;25(1):45-52.
21 American Cancer Society, “What Is Lung Cancer?,” https://www.cancer.org/content/cancer/en/cancer/lung-cancer/about/what-is.html, accessed November 2023.
