JNJ Reports Full Year Results
This morning Johnson and Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) reported 2007 fourth quarter and full year results. For their LifeScan division 2007 was a very good year with sales growing 10.6% on a worldwide basis. According to the company these results were helped by accelerating sales for their Animas insulin pump business. The company stated that in the fourth quarter of 2007 Animas sales increased nearly 40%.
Like so many companies in the space, JNJ sees the epidemic growth rate in diabetes and pre-diabetes as a major growth area. Given their vast resources and experience in diabetes JNJ is well positioned as diabetes moves from a medical device market to a consumer product market. JNJ is one of the few companies who understands that managing diabetes is more than just checking blood glucose levels or having an easy to use insulin delivery system. Based on their comments today Diabetic Investor would not be surprised to see the company move more aggressively into disease management and improving patient education.
This move towards providing more education to the patient is a welcome change from JNJ. In the past the company, like so many others, tended to focus more on advanced technology and not the practical application of that technology. A solid example of this change of heart is their OneTouch Ultra Mini glucose monitor. This small, easy to use monitor lacks many of the fancy features of other monitors yet JNJ has built sales on making life easier for the patient. Understanding that the diabetes market is moving towards a consumer product model the company made the wise decision to offer the Ultra Mini in a variety of colors. While the color of the meter has no impact on increased testing frequency it does make the device more consumer friendly.
Looking towards the future Diabetic Investor sees JNJ expanding their lead in glucose monitoring and making further gains in the insulin pump market. Given their resources and commitment to being number 1 or 2 in each market segment it would come as no surprise if the company goes out an makes more acquisitions in the diabetes space. Diabetic Investor suspects these acquisitions will go beyond the device area and could include disease management.
All in all, JNJ continues on a roll in diabetes and the future looks very bright.
David Kliff
Publisher
Diabetic Investor
www.diabeticinvestor.com
www.davesrunfordiabetes.blogspot.com
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