Cleansing Skin Care

Those include some top-selling nonprescription brands: Nicorette smoking cessation products, Zantac for heartburn, Visine eye drops and Rogaine for hair loss, plus Benadryl and Sudafed to supplement the Tylenol cold and allergy variations. Once the deal gets approval by a host of regulators, expected by year's end, J&J also will get the U.S. rights to eventually switch the No. 1 nonsedating antihistamine, Zyrtec, to a nonprescription version.

Cleansing Skin Care

Scott Thoma, an analyst at Edward Jones, which has maintained a buy recommendation on J&J for more than a decade, said he thinks J&J can increase sales of the Pfizer products nearly at its own 9 percent growth rate for consumer products, which is nearly double the industry average. That will require regular innovation, such as all the products J&J has added to its Aveeno and baby care lines recently.

Cleansing Skin Care

For example, Thoma said Visine gives J&J a foot in the door to the eyedrop and contact lens solution market and would complement J&J's Acuvue contact lenses. They have passed Bausch & Lomb as the top brand and now that company has been hurt by recent recalls of lens solutions linked to severe eye infections, he said.

Cleansing Skin Care

Thoma said Wall Street seemed to be expecting Johnson & Johnson to acquire a pharmaceutical or medical device business after it lost out in the bidding for heart-device maker Guidant Corp. -- still plagued by repeated product recalls. He sees consumer health as a more stable, if slower-growing area, because there's no risk of generic competition or problems with government regulators or insurers.

"I'm sure that J&J feels very good about their decision to let Boston Scientific have Guidant," he said.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.