Mead Johnson Nutritionals - A Bristol-Myers Squibb Company: We are a world leader in nutrition, dedicated to helping provide infants and children with the best start in life.

Our History

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The Mead Johnson's Story

The inspiration for Mead Johnson's quest for excellence in the field of nutrition dates back more than 100 years. Company founder, Edward Mead Johnson, Sr., was the father of a very sick infant who was not tolerating his feedings. The infant, Edward "Ted" Johnson, Jr., recovered - but only after a leading U.S. pediatrician, Abraham Jacobi, M.D., - prescribed a specially prepared cooked gruel. E. Mead Johnson would remember that experience many years later when asked to develop an infant feeding product with similar properties.

Years before establishing Mead Johnson & Company in 1905, E. Mead Johnson and his brothers created Johnson & Johnson, which manufactured aseptic dressings.

Eventually, E. Mead Johnson parted company from his brothers and set out on his own to pursue his interest in nutritional products. In 1905, he re-established his original nutritional business as Mead Johnson & Company.

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In 1911, a well-known pediatrician, Jerome Leopold, M.D., requested that Mead Johnson develop an infant feeding mixture similar to the one that had been fed to E. Mead's son Ted many years earlier. That mixture became became Dextri-Maltose®, the company's first successful infant feeding product. A carbohydrate milk-modifier, Dextri-Maltose was also the first clinically tested, physician-recommended infant feeding product in the U.S.

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In 1915, Mead Johnson relocated from New Jersey to Evansville, Indiana in the U.S. By the early 1920s, Ted Johnson and his brother Lambert were both active in the family business. Through expanded research and development, the company was able to produce several products that were firsts of their kind in the U.S. They included, the first standardized cod liver oil; Pablum, the first fortified-pre-cooked cereal for infants; Nutramigen®, the first protein hydroloysate infant formula; and Vi-Sol®, the first water-soluble infant vitamins in drop-dosage form.

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During the decades that followed, the company branched out into pharmaceuticals, became a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Company (which later merged with Squibb), and also established several significant businesses outside the U.S.

Today, Mead Johnson Nutritionals is a world leader in science-based pediatric nutrition, dedicated to the health and well-being of infants and children and committed to nourishing generations to come.

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