![]() ![]() Its product list included more than 2,500 suture-needle combinations. Its gross profits-the profits on its goods sold without deducting selling and general administrative expenses and taxes-were estimated at $85 million, indicating that its gross profit margin was an astonishing 70 percent-higher than any other Johnson & Johnson division or subsidiary in what was a high-profit-margin industry.īy 1980 Ethicon's sutures were being used in more than 7,500 U.S. In 1978 Ethicon's revenues were estimated at $120 million. manufacturing plants in 1972, covering 800,000 square feet of space. In that year an estimated seven percent of Johnson & Johnson's income was coming from sutures and an estimated 11 percent from surgical products. Moreover, they could irradiate large boxes, even shipping cartons, while accelerators required the products to be run through in relatively thin layers because of the limited penetrating power of electrons.Įthicon was the world's leading producer of ligatures and sutures in 1971 and was also making other wound-closing surgical instruments. Unlike the accelerators, cobalt machines were said to have greater capacity with less likelihood of breakdown. By this time Ethicon was thinking of converting to new machines employing gamma rays from cobalt-60. It also was sterilizing by radiation some other Johnson & Johnson products and from time to time doing such jobs for other clients, such as 125 mink pelts infected with anthrax, an especially tough and virulent germ. Each suture was in a tray traveling under the electron gun and was sprayed for around two seconds.Įthicon was accounting for perhaps 75 percent of the total U.S. Bursts of electrons were fired into a powerful radar-wave beam and then hurled into the target area at nearly the speed of light, with these bursts fired at the rate of 800 per second. Since no heating was involved in the process, the sutures remained more pliable and 10 to 15 percent stronger than those sterilized by heat.īy the end of 1958 almost all Ethicon's output of sutures was passing under this atom smasher-not only the ones made from animal intestine but also those made of silk. The electrons killed any bacteria or other microorganisms lingering in the sutures. In 1956 Ethicon began what it believed to be the first major commercial application of radiation, bombarding packaged sutures with electronics from an accelerator. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ethicon conducted research on sterilizing its sutures, and it purchased a linear electron accelerator for its own research in 1953. In collaboration with High Voltage Engineering Corp. Johnson Suture was renamed Ethicon in 1949. Women made up the swelling number of production workers, because the operations of manufacture were 90 percent handwork and called for great dexterity and accuracy-qualities that women had been found to possess to a far greater degree than men. With the advent of World War II, Johnson and other suture makers were asked to produce scores of millions more sutures than they had ever done before. The strands were then tested for tensile strength and other desired properties. The next step was polishing and smoothing by hand. The strands were then strung under tension on poles 20 feet apart and dried, the natural glue of the ribbons binding them together in the strand. When the ribbons were as thin as tissue paper, several were twisted into a single strand. They were first soaked in alkaline solutions that "plumped" them to several times normal thickness, then split into half-inch-thick ribbons that were next scraped to remove all tissue except the innermost layer. Commonly used "catgut" sutures were actually made from the muscular tissue of sheep intestines. The line of sutures called Ethicon grew out of this subsidiary. The company was founded in 1921 as Johnson Suture Corp. The company's clinical and business services offer seminars, programs, and educational materials for the professional education of healthcare personnel and the financial concerns of management personnel. that principally develops, manufactures, and markets sutures, ligatures, staplers, and other wound-closing products. is the subsidiary of the giant healthcare products firm Johnson & Johnson Co. SICs: 3841 Surgical and Medical Instruments and ApparatusĮthicon, Inc. ![]() Incorporated: 1921 as Johnson Suture Corp. Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Co. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |