Johnson & Johnson JNJ 1.73% plans to break up into two companies, splitting off the $15-billion-a-year division that sells Band-Aid bandages, Tylenol medicines and Johnson’s Baby Powder in a shift indicating just how much healthcare has changed since the company helped pioneer the industry.

The world’s largest health-products company by sales will separate its high-margin but less predictable prescription-drug and medical-device business from its storied but slower-growing consumer group, creating two publicly traded companies.

Millions more Americans can get a COVID-19 booster and choose a different company’s vaccine for that next shot, federal health officials said Thursday.

Certain people who received Pfizer vaccinations months ago already are eligible for a booster and now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says specific Moderna and Johnson & Johnson recipients qualify, too. And in a bigger change, the agency is allowing the flexibility of “mixing and matching” that extra dose regardless of which type people received first.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally recommended booster shots for many recipients of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday. As a result, up to 99 million Americans are now eligible for additional doses.

Providers expect to administer the first booster shots for the newly eligible Americans as early as tomorrow. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has approved booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson brands, including taking different shots for the booster compared to the initial inoculation.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky gave her final approval late Thursday after an advisory panel unanimously endorsed the boosters, marking the final step before the vaccine boosters are made available to the public.

There was a flurry of positive news on vaccine boosters Thursday, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered to discuss which patient groups should be eligible for boosters developed by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

U.S. regulators on Wednesday signed off on extending COVID-19 boosters to Americans who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially.

The single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine that last week won approval from FDA advisers for a booster shot probably should have been a two-shot vaccine from the start, the nation's top infectious disease physician said Sunday. 

"What the advisers to the FDA felt is that, given the data that they saw, very likely this should have been a two-dose vaccine to begin with," Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC's "This Week."

As the greenlight looms for another dose of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine, experts on Friday urged those who received it to get a booster shot as soon as it's available because it will provide them with the best protection against the coronavirus.

"J&J is a very good vaccine. I also believe it's probably a two-shot vaccine," said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "It's really urgent that people get that second shot pretty quickly.

With many Americans who got Pfizer vaccinations already rolling up their sleeves for a booster shot, millions of others who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine wait anxiously to learn when it’s their turn.

Federal regulators begin tackling that question this week.

Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday it has asked the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize booster shots for its coronavirus vaccine, but has left it up to the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to decide just who should get their boosters and when.

"We're describing the data to them," Dr. Mathai Mammen, head of global research and development for J&J's vaccine arm, Janssen, told CNN.