BD has settled on a new name for its new company, the independent spinout that will house its billion-dollar diabetes care business.
Embecta is set to launch as its own, publicly traded brand in the second quarter of 2022 after almost a century of supplying a portfolio of insulin pens and syringes under the BD banner. The diabetes division contributed about 6% of the company’s revenues in the 2020 fiscal year, or nearly $1.1 billion, by serving about 30 million users worldwide.
Striking out on its own will give embecta the chance to seek out its own acquisitions while enabling BD to do the same through its ongoing tuck-in dealmaking strategy, the company said earlier this year after unveiling the plan.
Carrying over the “bect” in its logo as a nod to Becton, Dickinson and Company, embecta will maintain manufacturing sites throughout the U.S., Ireland and China that have produced around 8 billion injection devices annually. Its headquarters will be in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
“The diabetes care business can trace its roots back nearly 100 years to BD’s introduction of the world’s first specialized insulin syringe in 1924 and today is the leading producer of diabetes injection devices in the world,” BD President and CEO Tom Polen said in a statement. “We’re proud to see that shared legacy reflected in the new name.”
As first announced this past May, embecta will be led by the current worldwide president of BD’s diabetes division, Devdatt Kurdikar, who joined the company in February. He previously served as chief of the automated external defibrillator manufacturer Cardiac Science until Zoll Medical acquired the company. He will be joined by a newly posted leadership team, made up of BD diabetes veterans and newcomers.
Ginny Blocki, who signed on in October from Baxter’s medication delivery business, will serve as embecta’s senior VP of product management and global marketing. Terumo’s senior VP of innovation and development, Colleen Riley, also joined that month and was named chief technology officer of the upcoming venture.
BD’s general manager of U.S. diabetes care, Tom Blount, will be promoted to the company’s North American president. Slobodan Radumilo, general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, was picked to be president of embecta’s international business.
The diabetes unit’s current worldwide president of operations, Shaun Curtis, will head up global manufacturing and supply chain as senior VP. In addition, the division’s human resources VP, Ajay Kumar, will move up to chief human resources officer.
On the deal-making front, embecta will tap Jeff Mann as general counsel and head of corporate development. Mann joined BD in August from Cantel Medical after 14 years at Boston Scientific. And earlier this year BD announced that Jake Elguicze, previously investor relations head at Teleflex, will serve as chief financial officer.
In August, the company named David Melcher to serve as non-executive chair of embecta’s board, while Claire Pomeroy will be a director of the company.
A retired Army lieutenant general, Melcher was previously the first chief executive of the aerospace and defense company Exelis following its 2011 spinout from ITT. He has been a director at BD since 2017 and before that held a board seat at the previously acquired C.R. Bard.
In addition, Pomeroy served as a director at BD since 2014 and is also president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, she was previously dean and vice chancellor of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. Both Melcher and Pomeroy will give up their board seats at BD after embecta’s spinoff as a publicly traded company.