Three Blind Men and an Elephant
Posted on Tue, Apr 19, 2011 @ 04:31 PM
The recent news that Johnson & Johnson has engaged in talks to acquire Synthes, a leading global medical device company, got me thinking about an ancient Buddhist parable. The one about the three blind men and the elephant.
The story goes something like this. Three blind men are asked to touch different parts of an elephant and describe what they think it is based on their perceptions. The men each describe the elephant differently and are unable to agree on what it is, because their experiences of the elephant are all different.
You may be asking yourself, "what on Earth does a potential deal between J&J and Synthes have to do with an ancient Buddhist story about three blind men and an elephant?"
I think that for many of us who work in healthcare communications, and particularly for those of us who have spent of a lot of our time focused on the pharmaceutical industry, J&J has always been seen as a leading global pharmaceutical company. While pharma is certainly a major part of J&J's business, I wonder how many people realize that J&J is actually now the world's largest and most diversified medical devices and diagnostics company. In fact, medical devices and diagnostics have been J&J's single largest business segment since 2009.
All of which is good news for J&J, when you consider recent developments in the pharmaceutical industry, including the latest announcement that drug spending in the US has slowed, and unfortunately, industry analysts are predicting that this trend is likely to continue.
--David Avitabile