"So you won't talk to your drug division?"

While it was common last year for pharmaceutical companies to report strong sales in their drug divisions, SmithKline recorded large gains in several side businesses.

In about 2004 Abbott spun of its hospital supply line into a separate hospital supply company from its drug division.

Much of the company's success comes from its innovative use of television ads, said Thomas Ebeling, chief executive of the drug division.

He was chief of the drug division of the Food and Drug Administration in Washington from 1936 to 1941.

The move appears to be a response to criticism from the biotechnology industry that the biologics division takes longer to approve drugs than the drug division.

It is expected that many people from the biologics division will shift to the drug division.

"It is not intended that we will split with the drug division," Mr. Schneider said to reporters.

With a staff of fewer than 3,000, including support personnel, the agency's drug division oversees more than 12,000 prescription medicines and 400 nonprescription drugs.

So far, the scandal has been confined to the agency's generic drug division.