Earnings Labs

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Jan 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. And welcome to Johnson & Johnson's fourth quarter 2015 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of the conference. This call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. If you experience technical difficulties during the conference, you may press star zero to reach the operator. I would now like to turn conference call over to Johnson & Johnson. You may begin.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Good morning and welcome. I'm Louise Mehrotra, Vice President of Investor Relations for Johnson & Johnson. And it is my pleasure this morning to review our business results for the fourth quarter of 2015. Joining me on the call today are Alex Gorsky, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, and Dominic Caruso, Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer. A few logistics before we get into the details. This review is being made available via webcast accessible through the Investor Relations section of the Johnson & Johnson website at investor.jnj.com. I'll begin by briefly reviewing results for the corporation and for our three business segments. Following my remarks Alex will comment on 2015 results and provide a strategic outlook for the company. Then Dominic will provide some additional commentary on the business, review the income statement and provide guidance for 2016. We will then open the call to your questions. We expect the call to last approximately 90 minutes. Included with the press release that was issued earlier this morning is the schedule of sales for key products and/or businesses to facilitate updating your models. These schedules are available on the Johnson & Johnson website as is the press release. Please note we will be using a presentation to complement today's commentary. The presentation is also available on our website. Before we begin let me remind you that some of the statements made during this review are or may be considered forward-looking statements. The 10-K for the fiscal year 2014 and the company's subsequent filings identify certain factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements made today. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events…

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Alex, and good morning, everyone. As you've heard from Alex, we're very pleased with our 2015 performance. We believe we managed our business well and have provided you insights during the year in a transparent manner that allowed all of you to understand our plans and expectations. We finished the year strong, and we're carrying that momentum into 2016. We ended the year at the top end of our operational guidance range for both sales and earnings and exceeded estimates for earnings as published by [Thomson] First Call. Turning to the next slide, you can see our condensed, consolidated statement of earnings for the full year 2015. I'd first like to remind you about some of the key assumptions in our guidance for 2015. At the beginning of the year we discussed that while we reinvested some of the profitability from OLYSIO sales, our earnings in 2014 did benefit by approximately $0.20 per share even after those investments, making 2015 comparisons to 2014 results more challenging. Additionally, currency headwinds increased quite substantially in 2015, negatively impacting both sales and earnings for 2015 by approximately 8%. Given those expected headwinds, last January we guided that we would deliver operational sales growth in the range of 1% to 2%. As you can see, while reported sales results show a decrease of 5.7%, on an operational basis we ended up at the high end of our guidance with operational sales growth at 1.8%. We also provided you with an estimate of our underlying operational sales growth for 2015, which excluded the impact of all acquisitions and divestitures as well as the impact of hepatitis C sales. We expected that underlying operational growth would be approximately 6%. And we exceeded that estimate, delivering 6.5%. On earnings our adjusted operational EPS growth in our…

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Dominic. Manny, could you please give the instructions for the Q&A session?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Okay. And your first question comes from Mike Weinstein of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning, Mike.

Michael Weinstein - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking the question. So let me start with the margin expansion piece of the guidance. And this kind of fits in with the announcement last week on the MD&D business. And there's really like – there's two parts to the question. So if I look at MD&D and where you ended up with pre-tax margins in 2015, they were at 35.6%. And which to every observer would say, those are very high margins. And for the overall company, you're guiding to 200 basis points plus of pre-tax margin improvement, which would make 2016 the biggest year of margin expansion in the last 15 years. So talk about the decision to be as aggressive as you're being in 2016 on operating costs. And for the MD&D business in particular, why is the consolidation that you're pursuing and let's call it the cost transformation imperative at this point in time? And why are you being as aggressive as you're being? Thanks.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Sure, Mike, thanks for your question. Well, couple things. One is the – 2015 as you saw was a heavy investment year, because we benefited from the divestitures. And I think we were very transparent that we would make important investments going into 2015. And we did just that. So in 2016 we have a lower level of those investments, consistent with a lower level of the other income that we just guided to. Also it's important to point out that those investments we made in 2015, we're seeing the benefits of those already in 2016. So we think they were wise investments. And finally, we've talked a lot about our various programs of reducing our cost structure. And Alex today mentioned the program that we embarked on several years ago that will reduce cost by $1 billion by 2018. Well we're well on our way in implementing that program after several years of investment. In 2016 we'll see a year where the actual benefits associated with that program outweigh any incremental investments. And maybe – Alex, maybe a comment on the MD&D restructuring, and why that's appropriate for us to do today. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Mike. We do think that this is the right time to be making the moves. But really I think it's important to kind of step back and put it into larger perspective. If you think about what we've been doing in Medical Devices over the last several years, we've had a range of activities, ranging from some of the divestitures with OCD as well as Cordis underway. At the same time, we've been making changes internally with the way that our organizations are innovating as well as in the way that they're going to market. And so we see this as the next logical step in that overall process. Our Medical Devices business is one that we remain very committed to. We believe that it's got an exciting future, a lot of new innovation coming, new ways of dealing with our customers. And so we think this is the right time to make sure that we're set up for growth, not only in 2016 but actually for the next 5 years and 10 years.

Michael Weinstein - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Dominic, can you share any commentary about how you're thinking about the respective businesses in 2016 versus your 2015 performance? And then maybe just on the MD&D topic, it's hard to piece out what the kind of underlying growth is with the extra selling days. But MD&D did grow 5.8% this quarter. That's obviously inflated by that. Do you have any thoughts just in terms of where you are in the turn of the performance in the MD&D business? Thanks.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Well sure, Michael. Let me comment overall. As you know, our growth in 2015, primarily driven by Pharmaceuticals. And we expect healthy growth in 2016 from Pharma, but probably at a slightly lower rate of growth than what we saw in 2015 as those products that we launched are beginning to mature in their growth trajectory, but still a lot of growth ahead of them. So we're not going to give guidance by sector. But overall a little bit lower growth in 2016 versus 2015 for Pharma. Better growth in Consumer, good momentum in 2015 carrying on into 2016. And we expect higher growth rates in 2016 versus 2015 for the Medical Devices business as well. And as you saw, we ended the year with good, strong momentum in that business as well.

Michael Weinstein - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Perfect. I'll let some others jump in.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Glenn Novarro of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Good morning, Glenn.

Glenn John Novarro - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning, guys. Question for Alex. Alex, given the strong balance sheet, I'm somewhat surprised you were not more aggressive with the balance sheet in 2015, especially on the M&A front. And you made some comments about the balance sheet going forward. But I'm just curious. As you evaluate your options, particularly on the M&A front, is the fact that we haven't seen deals year to date or so far, is it because the targets still have very high valuation expectations? Or is it that most of your cash is trapped outside the U.S., limiting your ability to do acquisitions? Or is it a little bit of both? Thanks. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Glenn, thank you very much for your question. Look, we are and we have been and will continue to be very active in the M&A category. As we mentioned during the earlier comments, if you look at us historically, really over about any timeframe, 20 years, 10 years, what you see is about half of our growth being generated from organic innovation platforms and about 50% being generated vis-a-vis M&A. As we reflect back on 2015 we realize that the market was premium priced. We remained very active in a number of different areas. And while we didn't necessarily close on a larger deal, I would not assume that we were not engaged and involved. But at the same time, we think it's really important for you, our shareholders, as you think about long-term returns, that we stay at the appropriate level of discipline and decisiveness as we go through that process. As we look at the environment today, we see a number of opportunities across the Consumer, the Medical Devices, and the Pharmaceutical groups. We're going to remain very active. I think that our financial team has done a great job of using our offshore assets in a very compliant but also tax-effective way. And we'll continue to look for opportunities that ultimately we believe are going to help us continue to get into growing markets, to improve our share position, to provide complementary products and services to platforms that we already have, that ultimately are going to lead to long-term sustainable growth for J&J.

Glenn John Novarro - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

So if I hear you correctly, you're saying valuations were elevated for the targets in 2015. But I sense from you that the valuations of your targets, valuations are coming down. And it sounds like the cash sitting outside the U.S. will not inhibit deal flow. So is that a fair assumption? And then is there any one business versus the other that you would be more likely inclined to do an acquisition to help accelerate growth? Thanks. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Glenn, look, we're fortunate in that because of our strong performance, our strong cash flows, that our balance sheet is actually quite strong. I also believe that if you look at our track record of how we've utilized that cash to make the right capital investments in companies, that we've been successful with that. And look, we think that there's opportunities across all three of our different sectors. And it's not an algorithm per se as we decide which and where to invest, but rather it really depends on the opportunity. And many of the factors that Dominic described earlier, as far as what are the specific platforms that we're looking at? Where is the partner in terms of their decision making, what they want to do with the business? And frankly what the competitive environment is like? So we think that there are opportunities. We intend to be quite active as we look at 2016 and beyond in a manner that's been consistent with our track record in that area.

Glenn John Novarro - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks, Alex.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. Next question please? Next question please?

Operator

Operator

Yes. The next question is from Matt Miksic of UBS. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning, Matt.

Matt Miksic - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. So one kind of broader question on the sort of changes in the health economy in the U.S. And then I have one follow-up on some of the extra day commentary that you made. So looking forward to the MD&D day and the update on sort of the restructuring there. But stepping back, you've been one of the leaders here in sort of broader contracting strategies and developments, some of these value added services like CareSense and Outpatient Solutions. Alex, it would be just helpful to get your thoughts on what you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of uptake of those kinds of strategies. And maybe talk about whether we're in the early innings here? And how you think about some of the benefits you're seeing or hope to see with those approaches to the business? And then I have one follow-up. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure, Matt. Thank you very much. Look, overall we feel that we're still in the very early innings of what I'd call is the market evolution that we clearly expect to see over the next 3 years, 5 years, and even 10 years. And for all the reasons that we've discussed around increasing demands based on demographics certainly here in the U.S., and a rising middle class in demographics outside the United States, and the pressure that that's likely going to put on payers and governments and others in between. We realize that there is an opportunity for us to participate, not only in bringing great innovation that's going to help patients, but also doing it in a value-added way. And clearly the consumer, the patient is weighing in much heavier in these decisions, as they take on higher co-pays, as they…

Matt Miksic - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

Very, very helpful. And then the clarification on the extra shipping days as you talked about. It was a holiday week. And maybe OR surgery days were not as much of a factor as shipping days from what I could tell in your commentary. But you were strong in vision care, obviously a shipping type of business. Strong in Pharma. Just wondering, Dominic, if – or if you have any color on some of your consignment businesses, where we think about orthopedics, spine, and trauma, where the inventory is in the field, it's not on your balance sheet. Is it – was there any difference in the way those businesses were impacted, versus businesses where you're actually shipping and billing for things in the last couple days of the quarter?

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Sure, Matt. Well, just overarching comment on this. Of course these extra shipping days were already included in our guidance for the year. And I think you've all modeled for them. And as you know our sales came in pretty much in line with expectations. About 1% for the year we think is the impact overall for the enterprise and about 4% in the quarter. You're right. It does vary slightly by different businesses within the U.S. in particular. So this is largely a U.S. phenomenon, as opposed to a global phenomenon. And with respect to the orthopedics business line, which I think you're referring to specifically, I think, Louise, you might have the details on the impact there.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Yeah. So the additional days in the U.S. in orthopedics was about 2.5 days, and outside the U.S. about 1.5-day average.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

So not really much different from the overall total, because that 2.5 days gets you to this 4% and 1% that I talked about earlier.

Matt Miksic - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

Got you.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

It was interesting also, when you look at the underlying growth in the orthopedics third quarter, fourth quarter, taking out the additional shipping days, we saw sequential improvement across hips, knees, spine, and trauma.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

That's right. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

On a worldwide basis. Okay?

Matt Miksic - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

Terrific. Thanks.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Next question please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Larry Biegelsen of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning, Larry.

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning, thanks for taking the questions. Let me just start with med tech, and then I had a follow-up on Pharma. So, Alex, can you talk about the health of the med tech end markets in the U.S. and emerging markets? And what drives the acceleration for your business specifically in 2016? When I look at the general surgery business, it looked like, adjusting for the extra days in the U.S., that was – or worldwide that was slightly weaker in Q4. So just the health of the end markets in the U.S. and emerging markets. And I had a follow-up. Thanks. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Thanks a lot for the question, Larry. Look, I think what we would say overall is we continue to see let's say a slightly increasing positive trend. So we saw hospital admissions I believe up around 2%. We saw surgical procedures up a little over 1% in the U.S. That's the most recent data that we have. If we go outside the U.S. we think rates in Europe have been pretty steady. And even in the markets in which we compete most significantly in the developing markets, we haven't seen a major impact from secular shifts. Perhaps in China some but not dramatic. And then putting that into the context and what that represents overall on our business, we don't see it as a major indicator. As I look toward 2016, look, there's a few things that cause us to be optimistic about our Medical Device business. And it really starts with innovation. And we've got about 30 products that we'll be launching by the end of 2016. Over half of those have either been launched or are well on their way as we speak. And what…

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead

That's very helpful, Alex. And I just had one follow-up on a biosimilar REMICADE. So obviously there's a panel scheduled – rescheduled next month. So wondering if you can talk about what issues you think we should be listening for? What your expectations are? And what you're seeing in Europe, where biosimilar REMICADE is on the market? And why or why not that might be a proxy for the U.S.? Thanks a lot. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Certainly. Well obviously we'll also be watching the advisory committee and participating in it as well coming up. And we think there's a few things to keep in consideration about this. And first and foremost is that as Dominic stated earlier, biosimilars are very different from generics. And particularly in this category, keeping the patient in the center of all these. We've got a tremendous amount of experience in the biologics category, going back to PROCRIT, REMICADE, (1:09:51). And we think that the differences between molecules can have – manifest themselves in significant ways with patients. So making sure. And I think things that we'll be watching for at the AC are, what kind of data do the biosimilars actually have? What kinds of indications? What will be the guidance around substitutability? All those frankly, sitting here today, are unknowns. We're going to need more clarification. But we think each of those means that the expected uptake, even when a biosimilar does launch, will lead to a significantly different curve than what you see with generics. We think secondly, it's very important to actually think about it from our patient perspective. And we know for example there's about 2.5 million patients with REMICADE. And about 70% of those are either continuing therapy and have a pretty high satisfaction rate.…

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead

Thanks for taking the question, guys.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

And just to add to that we have REMICADE in Canada as a Johnson & Johnson product. And we've seen fairly – it's actually still growing in Canada, even with the biosimilar there. Now the biosimilar has a limited indication there, but it's still growing. And we'll be listening to Merck's call as well to see of the latest in Europe.

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead

Thank you very much, guys.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Next question please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Jami Rubin of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning, Jami. Jami Rubin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Good morning. Just a – it's noisy. Anyway just a question for you, Dominic, and then I have a question for Alex. Just trying to understand the difference between consensus estimates for 2016 and your guidance. Do you have a sense for what the Street was assuming for non-operating income? When I go back historically, that's been in the $500 million to $600 million range. Clearly it was $2 billion last year. But just curious to know what consensus models had assumed for that? Secondly, did your guidance assume that the medical device tax would be suspended, as I think we've seen with other device companies? Just curious to know if that savings is reinvested in the business? Or if that is part of the guidance? And then for you, Alex, just curious to know your thoughts on pricing? I mean we heard Bernie [Sanders] and Hillary [Clinton] last night go after drug pricing again. And I don't think – I think that's also something we're going to hear from the Republican candidates. What are your expectations in terms of pricing in 2016 and 2017? Do you expect that there will be a change in terms of list prices going forward? Thanks very much.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay. Jami, let me try to take the first two, and then have Alex – maybe you'll comment on the drug pricing. You're referring to our non-operating, let's call it the other income and expense line for 2016, what was assumed in analysts' models versus what we have provided in guidance. When we looked at the analysts' consensus models, overall it looked like that number averaged in the high $900s million, so nearly $1 billion. And our guidance of course is somewhere $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion. So our guidance is slightly higher than the analysts' models. But just as a reminder we always take the opportunity to – since these are portfolio choices to use any of those gains to offset some other expenses we'd like to invest in. And then with respect to the medical device tax the – we have assumed that it would be a benefit in 2016. But I must say the benefit for us is very, very minor. Remember when the medical device tax is incurred, it's incurred upon the first manufacture of a product. And therefore it can be for, for example, orthopedic companies hung up in inventory for quite some time. So the overall impact of not having a medical device tax in 2016 is not significant for Johnson & Johnson. It may be significant for certain other companies that maybe are pure orthopedic players, but not overall significant for us. And secondly, I would say that whatever benefit we see there we've already assumed would be reinvested in innovation, because of course during the time that the medical device tax was a drag on earnings, obviously decisions had to be made on where to invest. Now we're happy that with that easement of the device tax for a couple years, we'll…

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. Next question please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Vamil Divan of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning. Vamil K. Divan - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for taking the question. So just a couple on the Pharma side. I guess one on the Pharma side and then one other one for Dominic. You mentioned STELARA, and you mentioned the strong quarter and 20% growth it's showing. I'm just wondering if you can share a little bit, as you thought about 2016 and maybe beyond, your expectation of that product going forward, just given the competition it's going to face from the IL-17s, both in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. So is this sort of 20% range still sustainable? Or do you think you'll see more of a decline? And then second for Dominic, just on the guidance. And I apologize if I missed this. But in terms of your EPS guidance can you comment on what share count you're using to get to that guidance? Or just give some sense of the buybacks against the year that you've sort of incorporated into the way you think about the year?

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Sure. Why don't I take that part first? So, Vamil, we obviously – we announced the share buyback in October. And I said we already through the fourth quarter spent about $1 billion dollars of that $10 billion. In our plans for 2016 we have not assumed that it's totally complete. But certainly more than a majority of the share buyback will be completed by the end of 2016, maybe three-quarters of it, sort of around that range. And that's what we've assumed in our models for 2016, the guidance I just gave. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Vamil, thanks for the question. Look, if we look at STELARA, one, it just starts with a great compound. It's had very nice uptake, very good growth. And we've certainly seen that in psoriatic arthritis. But we're also excited about the planned indications in areas like UC and axial spondylitis. So when you take the profile, the momentum that we're seeing in the current marketplace, and the share that continues to grow, you combine it with some additional indications as we go forward, particularly as part of our broader immunology portfolio, we think that there's – and the other important issue, I believe this category is only about 22% or 23% penetrated. So in terms of new patients that are coming in, all of that represents a nice growth opportunity for this important product.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Kristen Stewart of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Morning, Kristen.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Two questions, the first for Dominic. I believe a couple years ago you talked about the opportunities for margin expansion within Consumer. We really haven't seen that just yet. With most of the products (1:20:59) in the OTC business, do we expect to see Consumer really starting to reach an inflection point? And would the goal – I believe, Sandi [Peterson] had talked about 2 years ago at the last kind of Consumer update really getting back into that kind of 20% range – still really achievable in the next couple years?

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Kristen, we do expect that the Consumer business, now that the products have been launched and the cost remediations associated with the consent decree are largely behind us – although we still comply with the consent decree for another 5 years. We did want to launch those products with the right support. But it is true that we do expect, and we'll see it in 2016 and we'll report on it later in the year throughout the quarters, an improvement in the operating margins of the Consumer business going forward.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay, great. Then for Alex, I guess just following that, will M&A be a key driver to improving the margins or any sort of portfolio management? And then more broadly – I know I've always asked Dominic this question every now and again. I guess you guys have always talked about the fourth leg. And we've seen some of your competitors go to more solutions-based approach and wraparound programs. I know you have some of those as well, particularly within the orthopedics business. Is that something that you think of when you're thinking about M&A moving more towards a holistic healthcare model and maybe perhaps rolling in some more lifestyle disease management programs or something more on the service side? Thanks. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Look, I'd just pick up with what Dominic had just said about our Consumer business is that I'm really proud of the work they've done on the consent decree and the great strides that they have taken around quality. In fact, I think in working closely and partnering with the FDA, we likely have a benchmark organization now. And we're really proud of having done that. At the same time I think it is – as they begin to ship from only remediation to remediation and relaunch across a number of these areas, while certainly keeping a very high eye on quality, as we increase our volumes, as we are able to deepen our relationships with a lot of the major trade partners, that's where we see a great growth opportunity as well. And obviously, that's going to have an impact on our margins as we go forward. I also think that the other thing that that team is doing is, as we're transitioning more and more to online marketing…

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Bob Hopkins of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Robert Adam Hopkins - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Hi, thanks for taking the question. So two things, and I'll just rattle them off. First, I was wondering if you guys could comment a little bit on emerging market growth in Q4 relative to trends earlier in the year? And then, more importantly, just talk about the current operating environment in China. And when do you think we could see a reacceleration of emerging market growth for J&J? That's question number one. And then question number two is just back to the original question on the 200 basis points of pre-tax operating margin improvement in 2016. I was wondering if you could give us just a little more detail on exactly where that comes from? Maybe mention how much extra spend was there in 2015 that won't materialize in 2016? Just looking for a little bit more color there. Thank you very much.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. So on the emerging markets growth, excluding the impact of course of Cordis and OCD, it was about 6.5% in the fourth quarter and a year-to-date basis it was about 5.5%. Those are both operational numbers.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

And on China, just a couple comments. That China, we did see a slowdown in China primarily in the Consumer business, because both Medical Devices and Pharma businesses still had high single digit growth in China. And we're optimistic about China going into 2016. Our plans are for improved growth in China in 2016. But I just want to put China in perspective. It's less than 5% of our sales. It's an important market for us longer term with 1.3 billion people and lots of healthcare needs, et cetera. But any short-term changes in their economy is unlikely to have any significant impact on our results. And then on the 200 basis point improvement, Bob, it's actually across all three lines of the P&L, COGS, selling, marketing, as well as R&D. So in the case of COGS where we have a long-term program that we've been executing on to reduce footprint, we're accelerating some of those programs. That'll benefit us on the COGS line. On the selling, marketing, and administrative line, I talked earlier about the fact that we had a program in place for a couple years, shooting for $1 billion of cost savings by 2018. We're well on our way. We'll see cost reductions in that line. And R&D, that depends on the individual licensing deals that we have and the timing of when we would spend those milestone payments or enter into new licensing agreements. But as it looks today the advancement in the portfolio in 2015 from the milestone payments, et cetera, are not expected to be at the same level in 2016 that they were in 2015. So it's across all three lines in the P&L. And I can't give you an exact number on the amount of extra investment we made in 2015 but just to say that we had $2.8 billion of other income in 2015, well above the years past. And we still improved overall income before tax by not quite that amount. Right? So most of it was reinvested in the business.

Robert Adam Hopkins - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Great. Very helpful. Thank you, Dominic.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. We'll take two more questions. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Josh Jennings of Cowen & Company. Please go ahead. Joshua Jennings - Cowen & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. Just have one for Alex. And you have a formal plan in place to accelerate growth in the Medical Device unit that's reasonable. And I believe your target of returning in it to 4% to 5% or 4% to 6% growth. I just wanted to ask how patient you'll be before you look externally in a transformational way? And is this a 12- to 24-month initiative or longer time period that you'll put in place? Thanks a lot. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Josh, thanks a lot for the question. What I would say is this is something that has been underway for the last several months. But clearly we're accelerating it. And whenever you make this kind of a decision, we certainly think about the impact that it has on employees. But we also see it as our responsibility to make sure that this business is positioned for the next 5 years, the next 10 years. And with that note we have a high sense of urgency about increasing our rate of innovation, about making the business model changes, and ultimately about making sure that we're more competitive and delivering in the markets. We try to be very clear where our goal is to grow faster than the markets. Even given our size and given our scale, we think we've got over 10 platforms that are $1 billion. The majority of those are number one or number two. But we realize there's still a lot of opportunity. So while we're pleased with what we've seen, we're far from satisfied. And I know Gary and the rest of his team as well as all of us are completely committed to accelerating the performance of this group to be frankly benchmark in the industry.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. And we'll take the last question. And Alex will provide some brief closing remarks. Next question please?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our final...

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Yes. Our final question comes from David Lewis of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. David R. Lewis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning. Just two quick ones. I'll start with a strategic one for Alex and then a quick Pharma question for Dominic or others. Alex, just thinking about M&A for a second. I know it's been a theme for this call. But how does segment performance influence your willingness to deploy capital in those segments? So are you more inclined to deploy capital in outperforming segments or not? And I guess related, does it make sense to deploy material capital in devices through M&A until the restructuring has been digested and growth is back to market rates in those franchises? And then I have a quick question for Dominic. Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. David, thanks for the question. Look, it depends on a number of different factors. And obviously as we think about it for example in our Pharmaceutical group, we think that the model that we pull together, where we try to find the next INVOKANA, the next DARZALEX, very early compounds, where frankly we've got solid scientific insight. We bring it inside. And because of our clinical development and our regulatory capabilities, we can launch. And then very strong sales, marketing, and reimbursement practices around that. Frankly that's what's helped us create the number of $1 billion blockbusters that we've been able to launch since 2009. And I think 16 new products and seven of which are like right at $1 billion or shortly will be. And so we think that's a good model. In Medical Devices we've done tuck-ins as well as large. And look, I think in both cases, whether it's Pharma or Medical Devices, the smaller tuck-ins…

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. So I'll give you the market share third quarter versus fourth quarter, which will give you some nice trend information. So and this is U.S. For the total we went from 6.3% in the third quarter to 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Primary care, we went from 5.6% to 5.8%. And endo is at flat at about 13% quarter-to-quarter.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

And the reading that we're getting from the field is that most physicians – and in fact some guidelines were recently published that the cardiovascular benefit that we saw with the other SGLT2 is most likely a class effect. And that's the way physicians treat it. And in fact the guidelines were just recently issued that called it a class effect. Our data won't be until sometime mid-2017 I believe...

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

2017.

Dominic J. Caruso - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Management

...on those results, where we'll actually then be able to put those results in our label. But until then I think the market recognizes it as a beneficial effect on cardiovascular. David R. Lewis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you very much.

Louise Mehrotra - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. And so final remarks? Alex Gorsky - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. So thank you very much, everybody. Look, and in closing I'd like to thank you again for joining today's call. We're pleased with the results we delivered in 2015. And we think our strong underlying operational growth across the enterprise, combined with a very high sense of urgency, gives us a lot of confidence as we head in 2016. And we're optimistic about the opportunities in healthcare and frankly about the underlying strength of our core business. So thank you very much. And I hope everyone has a great day.