With just a few days left in 2018, it’s the perfect time to look back at personal lessons learned, progress achieved and memories made.
It’s also a good time to reflect on some of the strides Johnson & Johnson made over the past year toward its core mission: helping create a healthier world for everyone, everywhere.
From innovative children’s health programs to groundbreaking work in the battle against HIV, cancer and tuberculosis, here are just some of the people and programs that inspired us in 2018.
Hope that we will ... make HIV history
Meet a Johnson & Johnson researcher poised to crack the HIV vaccine code
Hanneke Schuitemaker, Ph.D., and other researchers at Janssen, part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, have been hard at work for many years to develop the holy grail of HIV research: a preventive vaccine. A new study is underway to evaluate the vaccine in 2,600 young women, with results anticipated in 2021.
7 questions for Alex Gorsky about Johnson & Johnson’s groundbreaking work in South Africa
In sub-Saharan Africa, where young women are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, Johnson & Johnson has collaborated with the United Nations Population Fund to create the DREAMS Youth Leadership Team, which uses peer-to-peer empowerment to reduce HIV/AIDS infections—putting the healthcare leaders of tomorrow at the forefront of education and outreach efforts.
“I have HIV": This researcher is fighting the disease—and the stigma attached to it
Janssen also has a collaboration in place with the International Partnership for Microbicides to develop a silicone vaginal ring coated with an HIV-resistant compound that could help young women protect themselves from infection. Creating and testing the ring has taken Jens Van Roey, M.D.—the recently retired Director of Global Clinical Development, Global Public Health, Johnson & Johnson—and his team nearly 20 years. But it was worth the effort—development is nearing the final stages.
Hope that we will ... help children around the world get a healthier start in life
Why Johnson & Johnson wants to help make today’s babies the healthiest generation yet
One way the company is helping to improve the health of future generations? By partnering on programs like Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait, which aims to decrease preterm birth in the U.S. through a combination of education and increased medical access for expectant moms.
Caring & giving around the globe: 43 Johnson & Johnson programs that are transforming lives—and the future of healthcare
The company is involved in a number of programs that aim to help kids get a healthy start in life, from a partnership that provides child and maternal health services to refugee and immigrant communities in Australia to an initiative that helps train and equip health workers to provide essential maternal and newborn care to families in Pakistan.
Helping kids see clearly: Johnson & Johnson Vision teams up with the Singapore Eye Research Institute to launch a new myopia initiative
In November, Johnson & Johnson Vision announced a three-year partnership with the Singapore National Eye Center and Singapore Eye Research Institute to work on solutions that could help halt the alarming global increase in pediatric myopia (or nearsightedness).
Why Johnson & Johnson is on a mission to make treating pediatric patients safer
The company is also tackling another area of childhood health—pediatric medicine—through its industry-leading Child Health Innovation Leadership Department (CHILD). Its mission is to help drive the creation of new and better policies around medical treatments for children, as well as uphold the safety and effectiveness of pediatric drugs.
Hope that we will ... conquer cancer
How Johnson & Johnson is pioneering in the fight against the world’s #1 cancer killer
In June, the company announced a five-year partnership with Boston University on a new Lung Cancer Initiative that aims to find ways to better detect and treat lung cancer, the deadliest cancer in the world.
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The company is also leading the way in the detection and treatment of prostate cancer. Researchers at Janssen are working to develop two game-changing new tests: One would help determine which patients are more likely to develop this form of cancer, and the other would work to identify an early-stage marker for the disease—hopefully both helping doctors catch and treat the disease earlier.
5 ways one company is working to boost the health of the African-American community
Another deadly cancer, multiple myeloma, is more common among people of African descent. That’s one reason why the Janssen Research & Development Leadership Chapter of the African-American Leadership Council is on a mission to increase the number of minorities who participate in clinical trials. The hope is to uncover better treatments for more people affected by this incurable blood disease as well as other illnesses that are disproportionately found in minority populations.
4 questions for immunotherapy pioneer Dr. James Allison
Finally, we were inspired in September when we learned more about the work being done by James Allison, Ph.D., winner of the 2018 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research and the year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his breakthrough discovery of a new way to recruit the immune system to attack solid tumor cancers.
Hope that we will ... improve lives through new technology
The future really is bionic: 4 surgical procedures you won’t believe are possible
Johnson & Johnson is harnessing technology to reshape the future of surgery with such next-generation medical devices as an expandable “ship in a bottle” device for delicate spine surgery and a tiny, tree-like device that can help treat certain types of complex brain aneurysms.
The latest AI frontier: How Neutrogena Skin360™ is revolutionizing skincare
The new Neutrogena Skin360™ app and skin scanning tool taps into dermatologist-grade technology to analyze your face, show how it’s changing over time and help ensure your beauty regimen is achieving results—all via your smartphone.
Acuvue Oasys® with Transitions™ Light Intelligent Technology™ contact lenses named one of Time‘s Best Inventions of 2018
The first-of-its-kind Acuvue Oasys® with Transitions™ Light Intelligent Technology™ contact lenses provide vision correction, along with a built-in photochromic filter that responds to changing light conditions—leading to its recognition by Time as a Best Invention of the year.
Why the city that never sleeps is ready to reinvent healthcare with JLABS @ NYC
And speaking of next-generation breakthroughs, Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s new health sciences incubator, JLABS @ NYC, opened its doors in June, offering health tech entrepreneurs a place to cultivate their inventions.
5 things to know about Johnson & Johnson’s 2017 Health for Humanity Report
Finally, Johnson & Johnson is leveraging technology to reimagine how care is delivered to patients. The company’s Health Partner Digital Platform, for example, combines behavior and data science, human-centered design and health technology to transform the way people prepare for and recover from knee, hip or weight loss surgery.
Hope that we will ... finally stop TB
Breath for Life: The Johnson & Johnson program that’s helping eradicate tuberculosis in Vietnam
One area that’s especially hard-hit by the disease is Vietnam, where tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of mortality among all infectious diseases. That’s why Johnson & Johnson formed a unique partnership in 2016 with global health nonprofit PATH known as Breath for Life. Two years later, it has already made an impact: In the Nghe An province, one of the country’s most heavily burdened areas, the possibility of someone dying from undetected TB is now near zero.
The quest to end tuberculosis: 13 memorable moments in innovation
In September, the company announced a 10-year initiative in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of halting the TB pandemic by 2030. As part of that commitment, Johnson & Johnson will work to accelerate research and development to discover the next generation of TB treatments—including a promising single-pill regimen meant to treat all strains of the disease.
Hope that we will ... eliminate stigma and find new solutions for mental health
How Johnson & Johnson is doing its part to tackle the worldwide mental health epidemic
As Paul Stoffels, M.D., the company’s Chief Scientific Officer, explains, Johnson & Johnson is committed to focusing the world’s attention on much-needed innovation in mental health prevention, treatment and care. And the company supports working together with others to revolutionize the way we think about, study and approach the development of solutions so that we can help change the trajectory of mental illness around the world.
4 things we now know about treatment-resistant depression
One promising area where Johnson & Johnson is making headway? In the quest to find new options for those with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), which includes individuals with symptoms that don’t respond to the available treatments.
