Johnson & Johnson CEO Bill Weldon retires in April

Johnson & Johnson's CEO William Weldon (AP/Mel Evans)

Johnson & Johnson's longtime CEO, Bill Weldon, is retiring this April, following an embarrassing string of product recalls over more than 2 years that has cost the health care giant hundreds of millions of dollars and consumer trust.

The maker of Band-Aids and biotech drugs said Tuesday that Alex Gorsky, head of the company's largest business by revenue, will become CEO on April 26, the day of its annual shareholder's meeting. But Weldon will remain chairman of the board for the time being.

Weldon, 63, has spent his entire career at J&J and became chief executive in 2002. The departure is being described as normal succession planning, but Weldon has repeatedly said he had no plans to leave unless asked to do so by the board of directors, which has long been loyal to him.

His tenure has been tarnished by more than two dozen recalls of nonprescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs began in 2009. Medical devices and consumer products also have been recalled.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit has had about 25 product recalls since September 2009. Federal regulators have had three of its factories under scrutiny for nearly two years, and one of those, in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, has been shut and is being rebuilt from the ground up.

Meanwhile, the prescription drug division has had at least two drugs, for seizures and HIV, recalled over that time. Gorsky's medical device unit, the company's biggest by revenue, has had faulty hip implants that were painful to patients recalled, along with contact lenses that sting the eyes.

While there haven't been reports of patients harmed by the recalled products, the sheer volume of them is probably unrivaled in the industry. Weldon has repeatedly said he had the problems under control, only to have another recall pop up, with the latest just last week.