US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson Inc (NYSE:JNJ) announced that Paul Stoffels, the company's chief scientific officer, will retire at the end of 2021, Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.

Stoffels had spearheaded the development of the company's single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

Stoffels' successor has not been named.

Stoffels, who worked at J&J's Janssen unit in the early 1990s, re-joined J&J in 2002 when the company acquired Virco and Tibotec, a Belgium-based drug developer, to expand its pipeline for HIV drugs.