NEW YORK — Johnson & Johnson shares climbed as much as 2.7% on Wednesday, trading near $278.63 by late morning in New York and extending a yearlong rally that has pushed the healthcare giant into record.

The stock was up $7.44 from Tuesday's close of $271.19 as of 10:01 a.m. Eastern, according to exchange data cited by market terminals. The move followed a late-August U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a rare-disease use of the company's immunology drug Imaavy and a fresh Wall Street price-target increase that valued the shares well above the new high.

Johnson & Johnson, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has gained more than 50% over the past 12 months. The stock's 52-week low was $173.33, set in September 2025. Intraday prints this week have exceeded the prior peak near $276.47 from Aug. 19, and some data services flagged an all-time high above $276.50 as Wednesday's session opened.

The advance comes as investors weigh a familiar Johnson & Johnson mix: new product approvals, a raised 2026 sales target above $100 billion, a 64-year dividend-increase streak — and leftover legal costs from talc litigation.

A second approval for Imaavy

On Aug. 24, the FDA approved Imaavy, known generically as nipocalimab-aahu, for warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia in patients 12 and older who are on corticosteroids or have used them before. The agency said it is the first treatment cleared specifically for the condition, a rare autoimmune disease in which antibodies destroy red blood cells.

The FDA based the decision on a 24-week trial in which 24% of patients on the approved 30 mg/kg dose reached a durable hemoglobin response, compared with 8% on placebo. The 15 mg/kg arm did not beat placebo on that measure. The drug is given by infusion every four weeks.

Imaavy was first approved in April 2025 for generalized myasthenia gravis. The new use expands a medicine Johnson & Johnson has positioned as a franchise across autoantibody-driven diseases.

"Today's announcement marks the second approval for IMAAVY and is an extraordinary milestone for people living with warm autoimmune hemolytic........

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