Not long ago, Larry Jones, Global Vice President and Group Chief Information Officer of Johnson & Johnson MedTech, announced his decision to resign. On the LinkedIn platform, Jones recalled fondly: "Looking back on the 35 glorious years spent at Johnson & Johnson, my heart is filled with deep nostalgia for the extraordinary times we have gone through together." During his tenure in Johnson & Johnson's medical device department, Jones was particularly committed to promoting the company's innovation in oncology, orthopedics, cardiovascular and general surgery, and realizing the innovation of digital surgical connection solutions through advanced technologies such as surgical robots and machine learning platforms. As a senior technology executive, Jones has rich leadership experience. During his decades in office, he has led many major projects in Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical and medical device departments, including the recent three-year, $200 million global digital transformation plan.

According to LinkedIn information, Jones is passionate about the prospect of using cutting-edge technology to improve healthcare life, and has been invited to serve as a member of the Microsoft and Verizon Healthcare Industry Advisory Board. "This is not a farewell - just a 'goodbye' to my friends and partners throughout this journey," he said, as he embarked on "an exciting new chapter in my life and career." When asked when he would officially leave or if someone would replace him, Jones said he would share more details when he had them. With annual sales of more than $30 billion, Johnson & Johnson Medical Technology is the world's second-largest medical device company, according to the 2024 Medical Technology Top 100 Revenue Ranking by Medical Design & Outsourcing magazine. After the official announcement of his resignation, old colleagues at Johnson & Johnson Medical sent their best wishes to Mr. Jones in the LinkedIn comments section. It is worth noting that in recent years, the core senior positions of Johnson & Johnson have changed frequently.

Chairman of Johnson & Johnson Medical Group Resigns In February of this year, Mr. Vladimir Makatsaria, Chairman of Johnson & Johnson Medical Group and head of Johnson & Johnson's surgical business, announced that he had officially resigned from Johnson & Johnson Medical. Next, he will go to Livanova, the global leader in neuromodulation, to serve as CEO and become a member of the company's board of directors. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Makatsaria had worked in the medical device business of Johnson & Johnson for 30 years and could be regarded as a veteran backbone of the Johnson & Johnson Medical generation. Since joining Johnson & Johnson in 1996, he has worked his way up from the grassroots to the vice president of global regional business, president, and then from regional chairman to chairman of Johnson & Johnson Medical Group and global leader of the surgical (Ethicon) business unit. From 2013 to 2018, he also served as chairman of Asia Pacific business and China business. Johnson & Johnson Medical's top leader resigned at the end of last year, the top leader of Johnson & Johnson Medical, Ms. McEvoy, global chairman and executive vice president (right in the picture below), announced her resignation. Ms. McEvoy had previously served at Johnson & Johnson for 27 years. She had served as global president of Ethicon, Johnson & Johnson Medical's surgical business, chairman of Johnson & Johnson Vision Group, and chairman of Diabetes Care Group. In 2018, she officially assumed the position of global chairman of Johnson & Johnson Medical, during which time she led the company to officially enter the fields of telemedicine, robotics and digital surgery. In addition, Ms. McEvoy is currently the chairman of the board of directors of AdvaMed, the American Advanced Medical Technology Association. It is understood that during McEvoy's tenure, Johnson & Johnson Medical Technology's performance growth increased from 1.5% to 8%, and it invested more than 22 billion US dollars in business acquisitions.

Johnson & Johnson Medical Electrophysiology President Replaced Last May, according to foreign media MASS DIVE, Johnson & Johnson Medical Electrophysiology Department Biosense Webster announced the appointment of Jasmina Brooks as president. Michael Bodner, the former president of the electrophysiology department who served in this position for 10 years, was transferred to the global head of cardiac rehabilitation of Johnson & Johnson Medical. As the new president of electrophysiology, Brooks will be responsible for formulating Biosense Webster's global strategy and advancing its innovation agenda to enable the company to achieve sustained growth.

Compared with Mr. Makatsaria and Ms. McEvoy's nearly 30 years of experience as senior executives of Johnson & Johnson Medical, Brooks, who was promoted this time, is relatively "fresh blood". She joined Johnson & Johnson in 2014 and held several positions in Biosense Webster's global strategic marketing organization, focusing mainly on electrophysiology. In the more than ten years before joining Biosense Webster, Brooks also held multiple leadership positions in marketing, global strategic marketing, product development and engineering at companies such as GE Healthcare. However, not only the headquarters, but also the leadership of Johnson & Johnson Medical in China is experiencing a "big earthquake". In July this year, Johnson & Johnson Medical announced the blockbuster news through an internal email, appointing Edward Zhou (Zhou Mintao) to replace Song Weiqun as the new president of China. In the months before this, important positions such as the general manager of the Chinese surgical division, the head of human resources in China, the vice president of Johnson & Johnson Vision in mainland China and Hong Kong, the head of the cataract division of Johnson & Johnson Vision in China, and the national sales director also ushered in personnel changes. In the short term, the frequent personnel changes of top medical device companies are not accidental. Behind them are often the combined effects of fierce market competition, industry changes, and internal strategic adjustments and performance pressures.

So, what kind of game is Johnson & Johnson playing? Are there new strategies behind the frequent changes? Hundreds of billions of assets divested, group business reshuffled In the steps towards the "new Johnson & Johnson", Johnson & Johnson Medical has made a drastic revolution. At the end of last year (December 13, 2023), Johnson & Johnson Medical announced that it would sell its Acclarent ear, nose and throat subsidiary to the neuromodulation leader Integra LifeSciences for US$280 million (approximately RMB 2 billion). The Acclarent subsidiary sold by Johnson & Johnson this time is one of the world's largest balloon sinus dilation providers and one of the main business branches of Johnson & Johnson Medical, affiliated with the Johnson & Johnson Surgery (Ethicon) department. However, this is not the first "cut meat" of Johnson & Johnson in recent years. From the splitting of the consumer health department to an independent listing, to the sale of the entire Blink product line to rival Bausch and Lomb for US$106.5 million (approximately RMB 770 million) in July last year, to the announcement of the reorganization of DePuy Synthes orthopedic business at a price of up to US$700 million to US$800 million (approximately RMB 5.1 billion to 5.8 billion).

In addition, in May this year, Johnson & Johnson sold all its remaining shares in Kenvue, its consumer health business, nearly a year after it was divested and listed. At this point, Johnson & Johnson completely withdrew from consumer health. The above series of measures have confirmed the general direction of "focusing on medicine, accelerating and simplifying healthcare business" explained by Johnson & Johnson Group's new CEO Du Anqing when he took office. Crazy pressure on the frontier track, competing for the iron throne of the medical device battlefield. Not only dare to "prune branches and leaves", divest non-core businesses to focus on high-growth areas, Johnson & Johnson is more daring to "spend a lot of money" and quickly expand its strength through mergers and acquisitions and other means to seize market opportunities. Just last month (October 9, 2024), Johnson & Johnson announced that it had successfully completed the acquisition of V-Wave, a manufacturer of implantable devices for the treatment of heart failure, with a transaction of up to US$1.7 billion (approximately RMB 12.1 billion). In the first half of this year, Johnson & Johnson also announced that it would acquire cardiovascular leader Shockwave Medical for US$13.1 billion (approximately RMB 95 billion).

Mentioning Shockwave Medical, there have been endless "legends" about this company in recent years. For example, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, and Boco, which are firmly in the top three in the cardiovascular field, have all extended olive branches to it. As the dust settles on this three-way battle, the balance of the cardiovascular track will once again tilt. Analysts say that after the success of this acquisition, Johnson & Johnson is expected to replace Medtronic and top the global medical device list. At the end of last year (November 30), Johnson & Johnson completed the acquisition of Laminar, a manufacturer of left atrial appendage equipment, with an advance payment of US$400 million (approximately RMB 2.86 billion). After the acquisition, Laminar will be included in Johnson & Johnson's electrophysiology Biosense Webster business segment. In addition to the acquisitions in the past two years, another important acquisition of Johnson & Johnson took place at the end of the previous year. At that time, Johnson & Johnson acquired artificial heart manufacturer Abiomed for US$17 billion. The results of this huge acquisition have been reflected in the annual report of the first year of the acquisition.

It is understood that excluding international currency fluctuations, the global operating sales of Johnson & Johnson's medical device division will increase by 12.4% in 2023, with total revenue reaching US$30.4 billion. Johnson & Johnson's strategy of "focusing on high-growth businesses" seems to be getting good feedback. With a series of high-level personnel changes and adjustments to business strategies, Johnson & Johnson Medical is entering a new stage of development. These changes are not only a passive optimization of the company's current business structure, but also a positive response and proactive layout for future market competition. After a large-scale reshuffle of personnel and production lines, some people choose to leave, and some choose to join. For this old giant, there are both pains and new life.

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