Pharmaceutical and health care products giant Johnson & Johnson said on July 19 profit fell sharply in the second quarter under the weight of restructuring and legal expenses.
Net earnings fell 19.5% from a year ago, to $2.78 billion.
Revenues also exceeded expectations, up 8.3% year-on-year to $16.60 billion.
"Our recently launched pharmaceutical products continued to achieve strong growth and contributed to our solid second-quarter results," said William Weldon, chief executive.
But the second-quarter earnings suffered from a $549 million charge for restructuring subsidiary Cordis and a $223 million charge, including legal expenses and a recall of the DePuy hip replacement product.
The company said global sales of consumer products rose 4% from a year ago, boosted by a weaker dollar.
J&J highlighted strong results from its skin-care consumer brands Neutrogena, Aveeno and Le Petit Marseillais.
The favorable currency factor also underpinned drug sales, which climbed 12.2% to $6.2 billion and pushed the company's international earnings up 22.6%.
Excluding the currency factor, sales of consumer products fell 1.8% and drug sales rose 7%.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
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