JOHNSON & JOHNSON's DRUG R&D INCLUDES JANSSEN & BLACK

JOHNSON & JOHNSON's DRUG R&D INCLUDES JANSSEN & BLACK following the July 7 announcement of a funding agreement with the prominent U.K. drug researcher James Black. The agreement with Black, 63, gives J&J affiliations with two of the drug researchers with the most dramatic recent records of chemical discoveries. Paul Janssen, 60, who heads J&J's subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc., remains the company's research director. The Janssen organization is credited by J&J with 21 new product introductions during the 1970s. J&J says that figure surpassed the productivity of any other pharmaceutical company. Black has two of the top-selling drugs of the last decade to his credit: the beta blocker propranolol (Ayerst's Inderal) and the H[2] antagonist cimetidine (Smith-Kline's Tagamet). Currently, Black holds the chair of pharmacology at the University of London's King's College Medical School and has been part of the analytical pharmacology unit at Rayne Institute in London. "In view of his past record of successes," said J&J Exec Committee Vice Chairman Robert Wilson, the company is confident that Black "will continue to make significant contributions." Under the 10-year agreement, Black will head an "exploratory research unit" in London, to be funded by J&J. In return, J&J will have marketing privileges to any products that the unit develops. The London facility will have a research group of up to 25 people. Research at the facility is already underway. Janssen Pharmaceutica, headquartered in Belgium, has produced more than 60 original compunds since Paul Janssen started the research program in 1953. Janssen Pharmaceutica has been a subsidiary of J&J since 1961.