A medical worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) inserts a Covid-19 test tube into a box at a drive-thru testing site at the Alemany Farmers Market in San Francisco, California, Nov. 19, 2020.
- In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Becton Dickinson CEO Tom Polen explained how the medical device manufacturer's new technology can save hospitals money.
- Polen said the company is investing in automated equipment for pharmacies and laboratories.
In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Becton Dickinson CEO Tom Polen described how new technology from the medical device manufacturer can save hospitals money as they feel the sting of inflated operating costs.
Polen said inflation impacts hospitals more than many other industries, especially when it comes to labor costs, which are a large portion of their expenses. Becton Dickson's new products can help with workers' efficiency and productivity, he said.
"Solutions that can help drive automation and efficiency we see as a big need in helping to transform care," Polen said, adding that it can be advantageous to move routine care procedures "from high-cost high-acuity settings like hospitals," into secondary spaces like patients' homes.
Becton Dickinson makes a variety of widely used medical supplies like syringes and test tubes. According to Polen, the company is investing in automated equipment for pharmacies and laboratories and recently received FDA approval for a blood collection device that collects samples from a finger prick. This way, blood draws don't have to be done exclusively by phlebotomists through a patient's vein. Polen suggested the device could eventually allow patients to take their own blood in their homes.
The company developed "autoinjectors," pre-filled syringes that allow patients to inject their own medication, which can be used for treatments like GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs. Becton Dickinson also produces wearable injectors, which allow patients to perform other tasks while receiving doses of medication that may take a long time to inject.
Polen, who sits on the U.S. Department of Commerce's manufacturing board, said a main focus for the agency is creating a secure health-care supply chain, something that was tested during the pandemic. According to Polen, Becton Dickinson's strength is in domestic production, importing few products for its U.S. business.
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"We make billions of units of medical devices in the U.S.," he said. "We've been doing manufacturing right from the start, and so that's a core competency of ours."
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