The health care giant is creating what it calls “a new strategy and growth organization” to find additional or new areas of business beyond its existing far-flung operations. The move comes after declining sales in its key stent business. An embarassing and costly kickback scandal involving its DePuy orthopaedics unit. And a reorganization that involves slashing a few thousand jobs. And so three new operating groups will sprout…

- Office of Strategy and Growth will span the globe for all things not currently pursued;
- Surgical Care Group will focus on developing technologies for surgical procedures;
- Comprehensive Care Group will look at chronic conditions, such as metabolic disorders.

The OSG will be headed by Nick Valeriani, who currently oversees the global device and diagnostics business, and he’ll also take over the Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., a venture unit; the corporate Office of Science and Technology, and worldwide operations.

The Surgical Care Group will be run by Sherilyn McCoy, who heads Ethicon, but will now also oversee DePuy and Ethicon Endo-Surgery, and becomes a member of the J&J executive committee.

The Comprehensive Care unit will be headed by Don Casey Jr., who runs the diabetes biz, which includes LifeScan and Animas, and he also becomes am member of the exec committee. He now oversees Cordis, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics.

Meanwhile, Joe Scodari, who runs the pharma biz, is retiring early next year, a move J&J says was broached “several years ago,” but delayed for unspecified reasons. Christine Poon will now run pharma and continue as vice chair, but her other corporate responsibilities have been reassigned to permit her to focus on the pharma and biological units.

Here’s the J&J statement with ceo Bill Weldon’s corporate speak.