Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday announced that the current head and the chief financial officer of its consumer health portfolio will lead the business when it spins off into a separate publicly traded company in 2023.
Thibaut Mongon, the current leader of the consumer health business, will become CEO of the standalone company, and Paul Ruh will remain in his current role of chief financial officer. Mongon has served as J&J’s consumer health leader since 2019, and Ruh has served as CFO since 2017.
Executive Chair Alex Gorsky said J&J conducted an external executive search, but decided that Mongon and Ruh were best equipped to lead the standalone company.
J&J announced in November that it would sheer off the consumer health business from its faster-growing medical devices and pharmaceutical portfolios.
The consumer health business makes common household products and over-the-counter medicines such as Tylenol, Band-Aid, Listerine, Neutrogena and Aveena skin care, and Johnson’s baby products.
Consumer health sales grew 4.1% to $14.6 billion in 2021, while J&J’s pharmaceutical sales grew 14.3% to $52 billion and medical devices sales grew nearly 18% to $27 billion last year.
In the first quarter of this year, consumer health sales declined 1.5% to $3.59 billion as compared with the same period in 2021, due to supply constraints on ingredients and packaging materials particularly for its skin health and beauty products. However, J&J CFO Joe Wolk said demand was strong for over-the-counter medicine such as Tylenol and Motrin.
The consumer health business faced tens of thousands of lawsuits in recent years that alleged its talc baby powder contained cancer-causing asbestos. J&J created a subsidiary that was placed in bankruptcy to resolve the claims. The company stopped selling the baby powder in the North American market in 2020, but still sells its elsewhere in the world.