Medical device maker Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE:BDX) plans to add 25 additional employees to its Wilson, N.C., where the company plans to manufacture its newly approved prefilled safety syringes.
The news is a welcome change of pace from the layoffs that have dominated medtech headlines in recent months. BD plans to add the 25 new workers before the end of the year.
"We’re very much in a growth mode," Mark Sebree, president of the BD’s wholly owned subsidiary BD Rx, told the Triangle Business Journal in an exclusive interview. "The growth will be somewhat dependent on the market we capture."
Earlier this month BD won FDA approval for its line of BD Simplist prefilled syringes, which aim to simplify the injection preparation process and thereby eliminate areas of potential medical error. The current approval applies to a single antihistamine, but BD hopes to extend the approval to up to 30 prefilled drugs.
Those future lines will likely continue to be manufactured at the Wilson facility, which means additional jobs may open up there, Sebree told the Journal.
"We think this is going to be a big growth-driver for BD, and we think it’s the future of the injectables marketplace," Sebree said.
New of the hiring is a positive note for the medical device industry, where layoffs are much more frequently in the headlines.
This month alone, diagnostics imaging company Digirad Corp.(NSDQ:DRAD) warned of an undisclosed number of layoffs in 2013 and Baxter (NYSE:BAX) told reporters that the company is cutting 400 positions from a facility in Puerto Rico.
