Diabetes products were once Becton Dickinson’s core business, key to its corporate identity for more than a century. Those products are now on their own. BD completed the spinoff of its former diabetes assets on Friday, enabling that business to blaze its own path under its new name, Embecta.
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Under the transaction terms, BD shareholders received one share of Embecta stock for every five shares of BD that they held as of March 22. The Embecta spinoff severs all financial ties to BD, which now holds no ownership stake in its former diabetes business. Parsippany, New Jersey-based Embecta began trading on the Nasdaq Friday under the stock symbol “EMBC.”
BD has been pursuing a corporate growth strategy dubbed “BD 2025.” When the medical products giant first announced last May its plans to break out its diabetes business from the parent company as a separate publicly traded company, BD CEO and President Tom Polen said the move is part of the BD 2025 initiative and will give each company the flexibility and focus to grow independently. The BD board of directors approved the spinoff in February.
Embecta leaves BD a much more diversified business than it was when Maxwell Becton and Fairleigh Dickinson founded the company in 1897, initially selling glass syringes. Acquisitions added new products and business lines over the years. As it is currently structured, the Franklin Lakes, New Jersey-based company operates three business segments: BD Medical, BD Life Sciences, and BD Interventional.
Diabetes care was part of BD Medical. According to Embecta’s financial documents, this diabetes products business posted $415 million in profit on more than $1.1 billion in revenue for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2021. The U.S. is Embecta’s biggest market, comprising more than half of its global sales. According to a BD investor presentation, that business makes 8 billion medical devices used by about 30 million patients around the world. Embecta is led by CEO Devdatt Kurdikar, the former worldwide president of BD Diabetes Care.
“While BD is proud of its heritage in the diabetes care category, we are just as excited to see our legacy advanced by Embecta as a newly independent, publicly-traded corporation,” Polen said in a prepared statement. “Moving forward, each of our organizations will be able to focus on investment and innovation in our respective core businesses, support our customers and the patients they serve, drive strategic growth and enhance long-term shareholder value.”
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