J&J sets out to split the world's largest health­care con­glom­er­ate, hiv­ing off the con­sumer di­vi­sion

J&J is join­ing the move­ment in phar­ma to dou­ble down on risky but high-growth drugs and de­vices while hiv­ing off huge con­sumer di­vi­sions. CEO Alex Gorsky says that some­time in the next 18 to 24 months they’ll be split­ting the com­pa­ny in­to 2 dif­fer­ent op­er­a­tions, di­vid­ing the largest con­glom­er­ate in health­care.

Just as Mer­ck and Pfiz­er and Glax­o­SmithK­line be­fore, which fol­lowed sim­i­lar strate­gies, the move will put a bea­con on the R&D side of the busi­ness, where new drug de­vel­op­ment — and the high mar­gins they can de­liv­er — will be crit­i­cal to the new com­pa­ny’s suc­cess.

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