Business

Published: Wednesday February 22, 2012 MYT 1:24:00 PM

Johnson & Johnson CEO Weldon to step down in April


(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson Chief Executive William Weldon will step down from his post in April after a series of recalls called into question the quality of the healthcare conglomerate's products, from artificial hips to infant Tylenol.

Vice Chairman Alex Gorsky, 51, will become CEO effective April 26, the date of J&J's next board meeting, the company said. Gorsky was also nominated to the board, it added. Weldon, 63, remains the chairman.

The conglomerate, which had more than 250 companies under the J&J umbrella, has been plagued by a series of massive recalls across a wide range of product and medicine lines over the past two years.

The quality control problems at J&J's consumer healthcare unit were deemed so pervasive that last March, U.S. health regulators took over supervision of three J&J manufacturing plants.

The latest black mark came just last Friday, when the company said it was recalling the entire U.S. supply -- 574,000 bottles -- of its Infant Tylenol soon after the product had returned to pharmacy shelves.

Gorsky is the latest in a long line of CEOs to come from within the company, although he left in 2004 for a four-year stint as Novartis' head pharmaceuticals in North America before returning to J&J.

Gorsky began his J&J career in 1988 as a sales representative with the Janssen Pharmaceutica unit. In 2001, he was appointed President of Janssen, and in 2003, Gorsky became Company Group Chairman of Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceuticals business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After returning to the J&J fold he became global chairman of the Surgical Care Group.

"It is a testament to the leadership development and succession planning process at Johnson & Johnson that Mr. Gorsky, like all of the previous chief executives in the company's 126-year history, was appointed from within the organization," Jim Cullen, a member of the board of directors, said in a statement.

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