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FILE - In this Thursday Nov. 15, 2007 toothed photo, health care products maker Johnson …

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Johnson & Johnson's longtime CEO, Bill Weldon, is stepping the floor as the health care giant's predominate executive after an embarrassing string of recalls of everything from Tylenol to Benadryl has cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and consumer believe.

The maker of Band-Aids and biotech drugs reported Tuesday that Alex Gorsky, head of the partnership's largest business by revenue, bequeath become CEO on April 26, the epoch of its annual shareholder's encounter. But Weldon will remain chairman of the board for the time being.

"I'm honored that the entertainment has placed such confidence in me, and I am in like manner aware of the serious responsibilities that advance with this office," said Gorsky, 51, who oversees 140 manufacturing facilities globally being of the kind which part of J&J's of the healing art device and diagnostics unit.

Weldon, who has worn out his entire 31-year career at J&J, became leader executive in 2002. His departure is centre of life described by the company as normal succession planning. But Weldon has repeatedly said he had no plans to leave if not asked to do so by the provision of directors, which has long been constant to him.

"I look forward to the shifting of leadership and to a argent future for Johnson & Johnson," Weldon, 63, before-mentioned in a statement.

Weldon's diffuse tenure has been tarnished by greater degree than two dozen recalls of nonprescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs began in 2009. The recalls wrap problems from contamination and a nauseating smells adhering containers to liquid medicines that may restrain tiny metal shavings.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare one has had about 25 product recalls before this September 2009. Federal regulators have had three of its factories with less than increased scrutiny for nearly two years, and any of those, in Fort Washington, Pa., has been close and is being rebuilt from the clod up. Meanwhile, the prescription drug disagreement has had at least two drugs, according to seizures and HIV, recalled over that time.

Medical devices and consumer products likewise have been recalled. Gorsky's curative device unit, the company's biggest ~ the agency of revenue, has had faulty hip implants that were disquieting to patients recalled, along with close union lenses that sting the eyes.

While there haven't been reports of patients harmed ~ the agency of the recalled products, the sheer body of them is probably unrivaled in the efforts. Weldon has repeatedly said he had the problems in a state of inferiority to control, only to have another abjure pop up.

Last April, for importunity, Weldon charmed shareholders with a engage that the recalls were behind and brighter days were approach, along with another increase in the collection's generous dividend and news of a huge acquisition. But as recently as continue week, the company announced that it would retract 574,000 bottles of infant Tylenol for of complaints about the dosing syringe.

Congress has been probing J&J's handling of the recalls, including a "stealthiness recall" in 2008 in which the social meeting secretly paid a third party to silently buy up packages of faulty medication from stores. New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson likewise faces lawsuits over the recalls, including a modern one in which a family alleges its young son died in a short time after ingesting a super dose of Tylenol.

Amid the recalls, distinct executives below Weldon have departed pop, including former consumer health business rise Colleen Goggins, as the company worked to resolve the problems.

"The wont I read it is, he wouldn't regard left on his own if he didn't dare the company was on its progression to recovery," said Miller Tabak & Co. analyst and fund manager Les Funtleyder.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing person specially versed Girish Malhotra said he considered the prompt an overdue firing of Weldon. Malhotra wrote that the heads of manufacturing and accounting should likewise be fired, and the members of the table should be removed because they "exonerated J&J conduct."

"How a global icon of care and condition could not control its practices is exactly beyond imagination," he wrote. "I am not stable Mr. Alex Gorsky would be efficient to clean the house quickly to resuscitate confidence in the company. Time enjoin tell."

Weldon joined Johnson & Johnson in 1971 in sales and marketing at its McNeil Pharmaceutical subservient. A decade later, he started influencing up the management ranks, first overseas and in that case in the U.S. He was promoted to the executive committee and named worldwide chairman of the pharmaceuticals group in 1998.

A Brooklyn, N.Y. indigenous, he is chairman of the CEO Roundtable without interrupti~ Cancer, vice chair of The Business Council and a component of The Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Health Professions Workforce.

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