A sign outside Johnson & Johnson’s offices on Friday, October 10, 2025, in Irvine, California, USA.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
johnson & johnson The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced it has approved a once-daily psoriasis treatment, the first oral option to rival the best-selling injectable drug.
The FDA has approved a pill called Icotide to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, an autoimmune disease that causes skin irritation. Patients usually begin treatment with topical medications.
If these don’t work, move on to pills or shots. J&J believes Icotide will become a first-line systematic treatment between topical and injectable treatments for psoriasis.
Pharmaceutical companies are developing more advanced medicines than standard topicals, turning psoriasis into a competitive field. Icotyde is similar to J&J’s Tremfya and AbbVieSkyrizi provides patients with an oral alternative to the most advanced and most expensive drugs on the market.
“We think being able to deliver something that is relatively simple, that provides that level of clearance, that reliable safety profile, in a simple pill, is going to be revolutionary,” said Jennifer Taubert, chairman of J&J Innovative Medicines.
J&J estimates that approximately 8 million people in the U.S. have plaque psoriasis, and 75% of them are unable to proceed from local injections to injectables for reasons such as fear of needles. Taubert believes Icotyde will be attractive to those patients.
“We believe that achieving a profile like Icotyde in a simple, once-daily oral medication would be an absolute game-changer for patients,” said Taubert.
J&J has not announced a price for Icotide beyond saying the company will help people pay for the drug. Rival shots Tremfya and Skyrizi cost about $100,000 a year.
J&J expects annual sales of Icotide to peak at more than $5 billion if approved for other autoimmune diseases. The company is testing treatments for psoriatic arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease.
On Wednesday, J&J’s stock fell by a quarter of a percent, and shares of Skyridi maker AbbVie fell more than 4%. The hero’s treatmentShares of J&J and the biotech company that developed Icotyde were nearly flat.
