Judge Rejects Bayer Bid to Block J&J Erleada Ads

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday rejected Bayer's bid to enjoin Johnson & Johnson from running advertising claims that its prostate cancer drug Erleada reduces the risk of death by 51% compared to Bayer's Nubeqa. U.S. District Judge Dale Ho found Bayer failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on its false advertising claims, a threshold required to secure preliminary injunctive relief. Bayer filed suit on February 23, arguing J&J's campaign misrepresented a real-world, retrospective study as equivalent to FDA-supervised clinical trials, and that Nubeqa patients in the study largely received treatment off-label, skewing the comparison. J&J countered that real-world evidence legitimately informs clinical decision-making when head-to-head trial data are unavailable. In his 41-page ruling, Ho concluded that J&J's communications accurately reflected its study's conclusions and that Bayer identified no methodological flaws serious enough to render the claims materially false or misleading. He noted the study's design was not out of step with prevailing scientific practice. The underlying lawsuit proceeds on the merits. Both drugs compete directly in a large market: Nubeqa generated 2.39 billion euros ($2.81 billion) in 2025 sales, while Erleada recorded $3.57 billion. With roughly 313,780 U.S. prostate cancer diagnoses projected for 2025, prescribing influence between these two therapies carries significant commercial weight.