It hasn’t even been a year since Becton Dickinson (BD) officially divested with its diabetes care business, Embecta in April 2022. But if you were thinking that would slow this new but old company down, you’d be dead wrong. The company is now capping off a year full of change with the title of MD+DI Readers Choice for Company of the Year.

Debuting on the market as an independent company in Q122, Embecta is already a major player in the diabetes management space and has a rich history that dates back to 1924 when BD introduced the world’s first specialized syringe. BD announced the spinoff of its diabetes business in May 2021 with the rationale that it was competing with other company businesses and organizations for investment intention, said Devdatt Kurdikar, Embecta CEO and president, in a Let’s Talk Medtech episode published the day of its official independence. As an independent business, Embecta noted it can better focus on its customers, attract and deploy capital recruit talent, and allocate resources. The split also enabled the company the ability to spend more time on R&D.

“The persistent efforts of our approximately 2,000 employees around the world enabled us to be successful during our first 6 months as an independent company,” said Kurdikar to MD+DI. “Thanks to them, our core business remained on track and we exceeded our revenue, adjusted gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin projections, all while we worked through our separation from BD during fiscal 2022. Our teams made notable progress in standing up new systems, processes, and regional offices so we can exit the transition service agreements that we have in place with BD on time, while taking great care to ensure our customers and people with diabetes felt no negative impact from the separation. We also formed key partnerships in several regions that helped us expand our offerings and give our customers and people with diabetes greater access to products that can help them manage their diabetes.”

The spinoff, however, did come with tough challenges, he said, and lessons learned.

“A spinoff is a challenge in the best of circumstances, and we did it while managing through the market uncertainties caused by global inflation, supply chain issues, ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, and the war in Ukraine—just to name a few,” he said. “Navigating those issues taught us a lot about how we can address challenges in an agile and nimble way, with less complexity in the decision-making process. And by successfully overcoming challenges that people may only see once or twice in their careers, it gives us great confidence in our ability to achieve the goals we have set out for ourselves in the year ahead.”   

It seems that working through those challenges has been more than worth the struggle, and MD+DI readers agree. Embecta won this years Readers Choice for Company of the Year in a landslide with almost 90% of all votes going to the company.

“[They] were able to successfully launch themselves as an independent company while maintaining the same level of service and quality during very hard times, “One voter said, when asked why the company deserves the Readers Choice title.” [It] is the only company solely focused on finding solutions for people living with diabetes to make their lives easier.”

Another reader wrote, “Embecta has a strong connection to patients from the BD legacy products (pen needles and syringes for diabetic patients) and has continued that legacy since the spinoff. [The company] has partnered with Intuity Medical to co-promote POGO Automatic… and is committed to helping people with diabetes thrive through technology and innovative products.”

Some voters focused on its unwavering product supply to patients while in its transition. “It has managed to spinoff from its parent company without any disruptions of product supply to the 30 million patients it serves globally,” one comment read.

“Embecta has done an incredible job maintaining both customer continuity and associate experience while they spun out of BD. Not an easy task,” a voter wrote.

Coming into the new year, the company has no intention of slowing down, Kurdikar said.

“2023 will be our first full year as an independent company, and our hope is to continue to build on the momentum we established since our spinoff on April 1, 2022,” he said. “We also want to build stronger relationships with the 30 million people we serve as well as our customers, and through partnerships and innovation, help even more people gain access to diabetes management products and solutions that will make their lives better and help them live a life unlimited by diabetes.”