J&J faces slowing growth in a warning for market

Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest maker of health-care products, said it expects growth to slow or halt this year, a warning as the rest of health-care sector prepares to give 2019 guidance in the coming weeks.

The company’s shares fell 1.8 percent Tuesday morning after saying that revenue this year will grow somewhere between 0 and 1 percent — potentially worse when the strong dollar is factored in. While the company often tops the targets it sets for itself, the 2019 goal pales in comparison to its projections a year ago for sales growth of almost 2 percent.

“We still have more work to do and we are committed to continuing to build upon this momentum and return to above-market growth in 2020,” Chief Executive Offi- cer Alex Gorsky said during a conference call with analysts.

J&J has consumer, med- ical-device and pharma- ceutical units that would be large health-care companies in their own right. It’s the first of the major medi- cal-device and drug compa- nies to report earnings, and offers investors a hint about how the rest of the industry may fare.

The Standard & Poor’s industry subindex of drug, biotech and medical device companies was down 0.9 percent, in line with the broader S&P 500.

Major trends that could hurt other companies are likely to pressure J&J this year.

Almost half of J&J’s fourth-quarter revenue growth came from abroad, where its operations grew 5.1 percent, compared to 1.5 percent in the U.S. But foreign exchange fluctuations trimmed out all but 0.4 percentage points of those gains.

In the U.S., the company is feeling the ongoing effects of the drug cost debate, which is being led by the Trump administration and Democrats who now control the House of Representatives.