Moving Ahead

Every difficult period brings with it a corresponding opportunity for growth. Despite a challenging year, we are stronger today than we were a year ago. We have outstanding new products, robust pipelines and talented people working in a streamlined organization with more resources for growth.

In addition to our strengths, we see favorable trends in the health care market:

  • The global health care market is expected to grow almost 5 percent per year over the next five years. With our broad base of businesses, we participate in about one-third of this overall market. And we are focused on some of the fastest growing segments in health care. In fact, many segments where we compete are growing as fast as, or faster than, the overall market.
  • Many nations, such as China, India and Brazil, are increasing access to care for their citizens. While progress is still under way, there are sizable growth opportunities for companies like Johnson & Johnson that are deeply immersed in these markets and the health care needs of their people.
  • And finally, our expertise and business strategies are aligning with many evolving trends in health care—including personalized medicine, comparative effectiveness, wellness and prevention, companion diagnostics and biomarkers—many of which you will read about in the following pages.

Of course, we must meet additional challenges ahead. The effects of the economic downturn, such as high unemployment rates and decreased access to health care, shrinking hospital budgets and avoidance of out-of-pocket costs for discretionary health care purchases, present hurdles for our industry. These, coupled with the rising costs of regulatory requirements—such as larger and more costly clinical trials—create a dynamic health care environment that requires disciplined action for success.

I believe that the brightest and most innovative health care companies—with dedicated, focused people who care about the business of caring—will thrive in this evolving and still-changing environment. Johnson & Johnson is one of these companies.