![\"Johnson](\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/media\/jnj_CV_20090522085350.jpg\")
How tough was 2009? <\/p>\nHow tough was 2009? <\/p>\n
Consistent, reliable Johnson & Johnson — cited as a model of smart diversification by Pfizer’s CEO<\/a>, among others — saw its sales fall for the year. It was the first time in 76 years that J&J reported an annual sales decline, CEO Bill Weldon said, according to a live blog from Dow Jones Newswires<\/a>. <\/p>\n Total sales fell from $63.75 billion in 2008 to $61.9 billion in 2009, according to results<\/a> the company released today.<\/p>\n J&J’s prescription business was hit hard by generic competition for some of its big brands, including Risperdal and Topamax — a problem facing lots of major drug makers.<\/p>\n On top of that, Weldon said the industry is facing a wide range of pressures, including a shift in consumer buying to private-label products, less willingness to undergo elective surgery or buy contact lenses and diabetes-test strips, pressure on hospital budgets, and persistent unemployment. <\/p>\n Still, fourth-quarter sales did rise compared with the year-earlier period — to $16.55 billion, up from $15.18 billion. And Weldon said he expects the global health-care market to grow by 5% a year for the next five years, reaching $7 trillion by 2014. <\/p>\n Bonus Earnings<\/strong>: Read the full story<\/a> on J&J’s earnings for the fourth quarter and the year.<\/p>\n Photo: Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n How tough was 2009? Consistent, reliable Johnson & Johnson — cited as a model of smart diversification by Pfizer’s CEO, among others — saw its sales fall for the year. It was the first time in 76 years that J&J reported an annual sales decline, CEO Bill Weldon said, according to a live blog from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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