David E. Collins was the chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Products unit, the makers of Tylenol, during the still-unsolved Chicago-area poisoning deaths in 1982 that were caused by drug tampering.
Collins became his company’s public face during the crisis, and he worked to stave off an outright ban on Tylenol — as had been proposed at that time by Chicago’s then-Mayor Jane Byrne — and led the firm as it rebounded from the murders, regaining its market share from before the poisonings and becoming a textbook example of how to handle a corporate crisis.
Later, in retirement, Collins focused on giving back through teaching, serving on corporate and nonprofit boards, and philanthropy.
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Collins, 92, died of complications from leukemia on Sept. 22 at his home in Palm Desert, California, said his son Pat. Collins also had a home in Reno, Nevada, and he previously had lived in New York City; Incline Village, Nevada; and Mendham, New Jersey.
Born in 1934 in Oak Park, Collins grew up in the western suburb and graduated from Fenwick High School. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1956, Collins earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1959.
Collins first worked for a New York City law firm, Shearman & Sterling, from 1959 until 1962, when he left to join Johnson & Johnson’s legal department. Over the next 16 years, he served as corporate secretary, general counsel and on the board of directors.
“He was a natural leader,” recalled retired Johnson & Johnson general counsel and executive committee member Roger Fine, whom Collins hired. “Of course he was very smart, and he was a very warm, friendly, kind of gregarious guy. But also he was not the kind of leader who told you what to do. He was a leader more than a manager — there’s a difference.”
In 1978, Collins was promoted to a general management role as president of Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Products unit. He increasingly took on other roles as well, including overseeing several Latin American subsidiaries before leading all of Latin America, and he soon had oversight for all Johnson & Johnson’s consumer products as chairman of McNeil.
Fine recalled Collins’ decision for Johnson & Johnson to seek approval to make its own codeine. At that time, there were three firms making codeine, and Fine said no one believed that federal officials would allow Johnson & Johnson to do so.
“We had a vigorous trial in front of an administrative law judge, and it was vigorously opposed by the other three companies, and lo and behold — we got a license from the DEA to manufacture codeine,” Fine said. “It was a great example of his leadership and his non-linear thinking. And it was a coup for the company.”
Collins’ management acumen was seriously tested in the fall of 1982, when a still-unknown person or persons tampered with Extra-Strength Tylenol-branded capsules, lacing them with cyanide. The poisonings killed at least seven people and led to one of the largest pharmaceutical recalls ever, along with more stringent over-the-counter drug packaging.
For his part, Collins became the public face of Tylenol during the crisis, expressing empathy for the victims and their families while also communicating his firm’s commitment to improve safeguards around drug packaging.
Collins also relocated to Chicago to be at the early epicenter of the crisis, which was at the Cook County morgue on the West Side.
“It was pretty clear to me that I had to go to Chicago, that this thing was so important we couldn’t rely on secondhand reports,” Collins told the Tribune in 2022. “But obviously we needed to begin right away and establish some kind of communication with the key people on the West Side of Chicago.”
Collins also sought to build partnerships with local law enforcement and to act in a forthcoming manner to help officials with their investigation. That included voluntarily supplying law enforcement with lists of disgruntled current and former employees, and of the names of dissatisfied customers.
“We were polite, but one of the points we made was, guys, look, you know squat about this business,” Collins told the Tribune in 2022. “You have no idea where to look. You have no idea the questions to ask. We’re the only ones who do. And if you don’t allow us to work with you on this, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. And that really made sense to them.”
In an October 1982 television interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Collins sought also to reassure Johnson & Johnson employees and shareholders regarding the firm’s response to the crisis.
“The confidence of the American consumer built this product,” he said in the interview. “Nothing has changed. What has changed is that we have an insane individual or individuals out there who have elected to contaminate this product … and we hope to reemphasize and reestablish consumers’ confidence in this product.”
Collins and other company leaders developed tamper-proof packaging for Tylenol and refused to rebrand the best-selling product with a new name. In December 1982, Collins began appearing in one-minute TV commercials that aired in the Chicago area, asking consumers to restore their trust in Tylenol, which was becoming available in new tamper-resistant packaging. By April 1983, sales had almost returned to where they had been prior to the murders.
“The Chicago market is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the country,” Collins said at a news conference in April 1983, referring to local sales of Tylenol. And by the fall of 1983, Tylenol’s market share had hit 30%, more than 300% greater than its nadir after the poisonings.
“One of the greatest tragedies of my career happened to be one of the greatest triumphs,” Collins told the Tribune in 2022. “To this day, I believe that.”
In 1986, Johnson & Johnson named Collins vice chairman of public affairs and planning, a role in which he oversaw public, corporate and trade relations, along with advertising and the corporate secretary’s office.
Collins retired from Johnson & Johnson in 1988. The following year, Schering-Plough Healthcare hired Collins to be president of a new division in which he consolidated and reorganized all of that firm’s consumer products into one division. He retired from that role in 1994.
Collins later taught business and corporate social responsibility at the University of California, Davis, the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and at Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business. He also was active in the Aspen Institute, served on Align Technology’s board of directors from 2003 until 2014 and served for 21 years on the Notre Dame Law School Advisory Council.
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“We had so much fun” on Align’s board, said former Align President and CEO Thomas Prescott. “He was so valuable through periods of early growth and (intellectual property) litigation. He was a delight.”
In addition to his son, Collins is survived by his wife of 65 years, Judy; another son, Paul; a daughter, Ann Cazalot; six grandchildren; brothers Chas and Eddie; and a sister, Penny.
Services will be private.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.