MPO’s Most-Read Stories This Week—June 24

New products, personnel and a major purchase garnered the most pageviews this past week on MPO’s website.

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) led the charge with news of an impending deal to sell its Surgical Instrumentation platform to STERIS for $540 million. The divestiture will include BD’s V. Mueller, Snowden-Pencer, and Genesis branded products and three manufacturing facilities located in St. Louis, Cleveland, and Tuttlingen, Germany. About 360 employees supporting the platform will transfer to STERIS as well. The transaction is expected to close in BD’s fiscal year 2023 (ending Sept. 30). 

New products from Bausch + Lomb and Owlet captured cybervisitors’ attention as well. Bausch + Lomb Corporation won over digital voyagers by launching the StableVisc cohesive ophthalmic viscosurgical device (OVD) and TotalVisc Viscoelastic System in the United States. StableVisc and TotalVisc provide eye surgeons with new options for dual-action protection during cataract surgery. StableVisc, a cohesive OVD, helps maintain space in the anterior chamber of the eye to allow surgeons to extract and replace the clouded natural lens. TotalVisc Viscoelastic System includes both StableVisc and ClearVisc, a dispersive OVD, and protects ocular tissue during the surgical procedure. ClearVisc was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021.

Owlet, meanwhile, caught MPO loyalists’ eyes by gaining FDA clearance for BabySat, the first medical pulse oximetry device featuring the company’s wire-free sock design. Owlet specializes in infant health data, having monitored over 1 million babies. Available with a prescription, BabySat brings real-time, medical-grade infant monitoring into the home while under physician supervision. Its pulse oximetry tech offers real-time display of the baby’s heart rate and oxygen saturation level, alerting parents when readings fall out of prescribed ranges.

Science 37 and Butterfly Network drove website traffic as well with news of their latest hires. Erica Prowisor is Science 37’s new senior vice president of Patient and Provider Networks, tasked with accelerating patient recruitment, ensuring participant diversity, and gaining operational efficiencies; Joseph M. DeVivo, on the other hand, has moved into the corner office at Butterfly Network (president, CEO, and board chairman).

1. BD to Shed Surgical Instrumentation Biz to STERIS for $540M

2. Bausch + Lomb Introduces Two Opthalmic Viscosurgical Devices in U.S.

3. Erica Prowisor Named SVP of Patient and Provider Networks at Science 37

4. Joseph DeVivo Named President, CEO at Butterfly Network

5. FDA OKs Owlet’s Prescription Pulse Oximetry Sock for Infants