EUROPEAN  TISSUE  REPAIR  SOCIETY

Johnson & Johnson Wound Management is one of the businesses of Johnson and Johnson. J&J is the world's most comprehensive and broadly based manufacturer of health care products, as well as a provider of related services, for the consumer, pharmaceutical and medical devices and diagnostics markets.

Johnson & Johnson has 197 operating companies in 54 countries around the world employing 107,000 employees and selling products in more than 175 countries. The 2001 company report showed global sales of $33.0 billion and this was the 69th consecutive year of growth.

Johnson & Johnson's excellent financial performance reflects its on-going efforts to root each of its broadly based health care businesses in a foundation of science and technology. Simply stated, they believe that excellence in medical science and technology provides the very best opportunity for building leadership businesses. These are businesses empowered to assume the risks associated with innovation and importantly, businesses capable of sustaining profitable growth. Consistent with this focus on science, J&J invested nearly $3.6 billion in research and development in 2001, an increase of nearly 16% over the prior year and in 2002 it is anticipated that R&D spending will rise to more than $4 billion.

J&J has a 'triple A' credit rating - a rating few companies have achieved. This strong balance sheet gives enormous flexibility to invest in growing the business and to seek out and act upon new opportunities. Each year the company enters into more than 100 third-party transactions that include licensing arrangements and research collaborations.

The History of Johnson & Johnson

The fundamental objective of Johnson & Johnson is to provide scientifically sound, high quality products and services to help heal, cure disease and improve the quality of life. This is a goal that began with the Company's founding in 1886.

The development of the World's first ready-made, ready-to-use surgical dressings by Johnson & Johnson in the mid-1880s marked not only the birth of a company, but also the first practical application of the theory of antiseptic wound treatment. A new product, based on a new surgical concept, led to a dramatic reduction in the threat of infection and disease, which claimed an appalling number of postoperative victims.

The story begins with the discoveries of Sir Joseph Lister who identified airborne germs as a source of infection in the operating room. He called them, with grim aptness, the 'invisible assassins'. Medical science was beginning to understand, however imperfectly, the need for greater care in protecting the wound area. Yet, this concept of myriad living organisms, unseen and deadly, remained beyond the grasp of many surgeons in the nineteenth century who were doubtful or even contemptuous of Lister's work.

One man who did not question his theory of antisepsis was Robert Wood Johnson, who heard Lister speak in 1876. For years afterward Robert Wood Johnson nurtured the idea of a practical application of Lister's teachings. What he had in mind was a new type of surgical dressing, ready-made, sterile, wrapped and sealed in individual packages and suitable for instant use without the risk of contamination.

Prior to Lister's discoveries, the postoperative mortality rate was as high as 90% in some hospitals. Surgeons could not bring themselves to believe they were contaminating their own patients by operating ungloved with unsterile instruments.

Lister's methods required complex and cumbersome equipment suited only to the largest hospitals, of which there were few. A solution or a spray of carbolic acid bathed the operating room and the patient in a foggy mist. Still, it was a major advance over accepted procedures: unclean cotton, collected from sweepings on the floors of textile mills, was used for surgical dressings; surgeons operated in street clothes and wore a blood-spattered frock coat like a badge of honor.

Robert Wood Johnson concluded there ought to be a better way. Mr Johnson joined with his two brothers, James Wood and Edward Mead Johnson, who had formed a partnership in 1885. Operations began in New Brunswick, N.J. in 1886 with 14 employees on the fourth floor of a small building that was once a wallpaper factory. In 1887 the Company was incorporated as Johnson & Johnson. With few hospitals in the United States in 1887 large enough to use Lister's methods of antisepsis, Johnson & Johnson entered the surgical dressings industry.

The first products were improved medicinal plasters containing medical compounds mixed in an adhesive. Then a revolutionary surgical dressing was quickly developed and placed on the market. Recognizing the critical need for improved antiseptic surgical procedures, the Company designed a soft, absorbent cotton and gauze dressing that could be mass produced and shipped in quantity to hospitals and every crossroads physician and druggist.

Johnson & Johnson also extensively promoted antiseptic surgical procedures. In 1888 the Company published a book Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, which for many years remained the standard text on antiseptic practices.

By 1890 Johnson & Johnson was treating cotton and gauze dressings by dry heat in an attempt to produce not only an antiseptic product but a sterile one. In 1891 a bacteriological laboratory was established and, early in the following year, the Company successfully met the requirements for a sterile product through a continuous method of handling dressings so they were kept under aseptic conditions and subject to repeated sterilization during production.

The new sterilization processes, first by dry heat and then by steam and pressure, were the genesis of the Company's slogan: 'The Most Trusted Name in Surgical Dressings'. In 1897 the Company developed another major contribution to surgery, an improved sterilizing technique for catgut sutures.

In cooperation with several leading American surgeons, Johnson & Johnson in 1899 developed and introduced the zinc oxide type of adhesive plaster. Because of its greater strength and quick-sticking quality, this type of plaster became an important adjunct of surgery; it meant relief to patients because irritation to delicate skin was avoided.

In 1910 the first president, Robert Wood Johnson, died. Under his direction the Company had become firmly established as a leader in the health care field. James W. Johnson succeeded his brother and was president until 1932.

Organisation of Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is organized on the principles of decentralized management into three business segments. Under this the segments are comprised of operating companies. Each international subsidiary is, with some exceptions, managed by citizens of the country where it is located.

The largest business segment, representing 45% of worldwide sales, is the Pharmaceutical segment. The smallest segment (although still a large business) is the Consumer products segment and it is this business for which Johnson & Johnson is, perhaps, the best known. This makes up 21% of worldwide sales and includes well known skin care brands such as NEUTROGENA®, CLEAN & CLEAR® and RoC®.

The final segment which makes up 34% of worldwide sales is the Medical Devices and Diagnostics segment. It includes companies such as Cordis circulatory disease management products; DePuy's orthopaedic joint reconstruction and spinal products; Ethicon's wound closure, surgical sports medicine and women's health products; Ethicon Endo-Surgery's minimally invasive surgical and vascular access products; and LifeScan's blood glucose monitoring products. Also in medical devices is the Vista-kon franchise which is responsible for the well know ACUVUE® brand of contact lenses.