Becton Dickinson has built its reputation for quality, low cost and product breadth through what Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Vince De Caprio calls "relentless incremental innovation." Now, he says, the company is pursuing more "radical innovation" and that means broadening its vision to embrace new technology platforms. The key platforms for the future include accelerated development of a broader line of protective medical devices; molecular technologies for disease diagnosis and management based on the human genome project; alternative drug delivery systems, such as nasal, ambulatory and transdermal methods; "smart," information-imbedded products for error-free specimen and medication management; systems for drug discovery and development responding to pharmaceutical companies' needs for high throughput screening of potential drug compounds; and consumer products for self-health care and sports medicine and fitness.

Becton Dickinson is also looking at the larger environment in which its technology platforms will be operating. That opens up the broader vista embracing the support systems that surround the company's products and the larger clinical setting in which the products operate. The clinical setting leads to the development of themes that orient the company to its customers. The principal themes and related businesses of our medical and diagnostic segments are:

• Consumer health care — including diabetes management, home health care, and sports medicine and fitness
• Medication delivery systems — including injection systems, infusion therapy systems and pharmaceutical systems
• Pre-analytical diagnostics — including sample collection and specimen and medication management
• Bioscience and diagnostic systems — including immunocytometry, microbiology systems, molecular biology, drug discovery and development, and labware

BDProbeTec ET System: Closer to Instant Detection
Becton Dickinson introduced its next generation diagnostic device, BDProbeTec ET, in Europe in 1998 and expects to launch it in the U.S. in early 1999. BDProbeTec ET is the first system to utilize Becton Dickinson's proprietary amplification technology, Strand Displacement Amplification (SDA). Using SDA, the identification of infectious diseases can be reduced from days to just one hour. The first assays will address sexually transmitted diseases, specifically gonorrhea and chlamydia, the latter being the leading sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. The system also offers the first format in molecular biology to provide real-time amplification and detection. This gives the BDProbeTec ET system its fast assay time of one hour and permits a throughput of more than 500 specimens per shift, a tenfold increase over current competitors.

Benefiting from the Self-Health Care Trend
Taking advantage of the trend toward self-health care, Becton Dickinson is introducing a wide range of new consumer products and stepping up its retail marketing programs for its ACE, BAUER & BLACK and TRU-FIT lines of sports medicine support products. The company is launching a full line of ASSURE brand home blood pressure monitoring devices as well as an ASSURE ear thermometer that is the first consumer product of its type using hospital-grade technology. With the recent acquisition of MDI Instruments, the company has gained access to a new consumer product for the detection of middle ear fluid and ear infection.

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