Johnson & Johnson To Split Into Two Companies

Johnson & Johnson plans to split into two companies, separating its consumer health division that sells Band-Aids and Baby Powder from its pharmaceuticals and medical devices business in the biggest shake-up in its 135-year history.

The move by the world’s largest health-products company comes hot on the heels of similar announcements this week by industrial conglomerates Toshiba and and General Electric and underscores how big, diversified corporations are under pressure to simplify.

This has been the case in the healthcare sphere, where the slow-and-steady business of selling consumer products such as moisturisers and shampoos has increasingly diverged from the high-risk, high-reward work of developing and marketing drugs.

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