Medtronic Takes Best-in-Show Award, and Reader's Choice

Medtronic had two standout entries in the Medical Design Excellence Awards program this year, which were revealed Thursday during the Medtech Design Summit. Medtronic’s CareLink SmartSync Device Manager won the coveted MD+DI Readers’ Choice award, and the Linq II Insertable Cardiac Monitoring System won the Best-in-Show Award. This year's competition awarded bronze, silver, and gold awards in 11 medtech product categories.

A Big Step up for Diabetes Management

 FDA cleared the Bigfoot Unity Diabetes Management System, which features connected smart pen caps that recommend insulin doses for people using multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy. The Bigfoot Unity smart pen caps are designed to provide on-demand, insulin dose decision support to minimize guesswork and enable patients to follow their doctor’s instructions in a convenient, simple way. 

And in case you missed our last Medtech in a Minute report...

BD Sheds Diabetes Unit

Becton Dickinson & Company (BD) is spinning off its diabetes care business into a publicly- traded company in the first half of 2022. Devdatt Kurdikar, who currently serves as worldwide president of BD Diabetes Care, will be CEO of the new diabetes company. Kurdikar joined BD in February 2021. The diabetes unit generated revenues of nearly $1.1 billion with 48% of revenues generated outside of the U.S., including 17% of revenues from emerging markets. BD said the decision to spin-off its diabetes unit is part of the company's active portfolio management and consistent with its 2025 business strategy.

COVID-19 Testing Boosts Siemens' Revenue

Siemens Healthineers is raising its guidance for the year after receiving a huge boost from sales of its COVID-19-related diagnostics. The company said revenue growth could be between 14% to $17% as opposed to the original forecast of 8% to 12%.

LabCorp Strenthens Position in Autoimmune Testing

LabCorp is strengthening its position in autoimmune testing by acquiriing Myriad Genetics’s autoimmune business unit, which includes the Vectra rheumatoid arthritis (RA) assay, for $150 million. Vectra is a blood-based test that analyzes 12 biomarkers to measure RA disease activity. It combines those measures to generate an easy-to-understand score, which indicates the severity of RA inflammation and how well current treatments are working. It also can predict potential future joint damage. The deal is expected to close in 3Q21.