US pharmaceutical and health care products giant Johnson & Johnson has said profit fell sharply in the second quarter under the weight of restructuring and legal expenses.
Net earnings fell 19.5% from a year ago, to $2.78 billion, the New Jersey-based company said in a statement.
The decline was slightly less than expected by analysts. J&J reported earnings per share of $1.28, topping the average estimate of $1.23.
Revenues also exceeded expectations, up 8.3% year-on-year to $16.60 billion.
J&J reaffirmed its prior estimate of full-year earnings per share between $4.90 and $5.00 for this year.
'Our recently launched pharmaceutical products continued to achieve strong growth and contributed to our solid second-quarter results,' chairman and chief executive William Weldon said in the statement.
But the second-quarter earnings suffered from a $549m charge for restructuring subsidiary Cordis and a $223m charge, including legal expenses and a recall of the DePuy hip replacement product.
The company said global sales of consumer products rose 4.0% from a year ago, boosted by a weaker dollar.
J&J highlighted strong results from its skin-care consumer brands Neutrogena, Aveeno and Le Petit Marseillais.
The favourable currency factor also underpinned drug sales, which climbed 12.2% to $6.2 billion and pushed the company's international earnings up 22.6%.
Excluding the currency factor, sales of consumer products fell 1.8% and drug sales rose 7.0%.
