| Although ETHICON Suture Laboratories was "born" (incorporated) on August 11, 1949, the company traces its history 62 years further back to 1887 when the two Johnson brothers, Robert Wood and James W., their nascent pharmaceutical company only a year old, added "Absorbent and Antiseptic Ligatures, etc." to their assorted product line of plasters, gauze bandages, absorbent cotton, dental creams. At the time, the suture line consisted of eight items four made of catgut and four made of silk, all packaged in an oil base. Over the years, newly identified opportunities in endosurgery and mechanical devices as well as the continued growth in sutures led to the split of the company in 1992 into ETHICON Endo-Surgery headquartered in Cincinnati and ETHICON, INC., headquartered in Somerville, New Jersey. Based in Westwood, Ma., MITEK Surgical Products, manufacturers of suture anchors to attach soft tissue to bone, became part of Johnson & Johnson in 1995. In 1997, the surgical Specialty Division of Johnson & Johnson Medical Inc. joined ETHICON. Now called GYNECARE Products, the company is a leading manufacturer of products for women's health and has facilities in Somerville, NJ, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale, Ca., Gurabo, Puerto Rico and Athens, Ga. CARDIOVATIONS, the newest division of ETHICON, INC., offers a comprehensive line of cardiovascular instruments, educational tools, and resources designed to provide innovative tools for individualized patient care. Today, ETHICON, INC. has grown into the world's leading supplier of wound closure products with more than 2,500 needle-suture combinations for essentially all surgical procedures. A high percentage of accepted suture products and improved techniques available today have been ETHICON innovations, the result of long and painstaking research, careful evaluation and a business philosophy of ever increasing service to hospitals and surgeons.
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