Johnson & Johnson Looks For Ways to Grow Device Business
BusinessWeek profiles Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the giant corporation whose $19 billion devices and diagnostics business accounts for 38% of its overall revenues. Since product pipelines are notoriously weak at most major pharmaceutical companies and devices benefit from comparatively lighter capital needs and legal contraints, J&J is trying to accelerate innovation in that area. Up to now, the group let its subsidiaries operate in a decentralized way which tended to leave sizable unaddressed “white space” between their product ranges.
More cooperation among entities might help, with cross-discipline successes such as drug-coated stents showing the way. Most importantly for hospitals, J&J is trying to get better at embedding both cost-effectiveness concerns and end-user feedback in its new products. The company is also offering internal funding opportunities to sprout new start-ups within its walls. At the end of the day it is facing familiar problems for large corporations, from leading but maturing product lines to slower innovation made only more obvious by the natural increasing difficulty of making a sizable difference with new products when you have enormous assets and revenue streams.
April 10, 2006 Related topics: Medical Devices & Products