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J&J To Split Into Drug & Consumer Companies

By  |  November 12, 2021

Johnson & Johnson plans to break up into two companies, splitting off the $15-billion-a-year division that sells Band-Aid bandages, Tylenol medicines and Johnson’s Baby Powder in a shift indicating just how much healthcare has changed since the company helped pioneer the industry.

The world’s largest health-products company by sales will separate its high-margin but less predictable prescription-drug and medical-device businesses from its storied but slower-growing consumer group, creating two publicly traded companies, reported The Wall Street Journal.

“The best path forward to ensure sustainable growth over the long term and better meet patient and consumer demands is to have our consumer business operate as a separate healthcare company,” Mr. Gorsky said in an interview.

What form the separation will take, what the new consumer-oriented company will be called and who will lead it are yet to be worked out, Mr. Gorsky said, though he said J&J planned to structure the transaction to be tax-free.

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