Depuy's Strategy for a New Orthopedics Market

In the mid 1980s, Jim Lent was being wooed by Boehringer Mannheim Corp. to leave his post as the head of Johnson & Johnson's orthopedic business to run DePuy Inc. , at the time a division of Boehringer Mannheim GMBH (now Corange Ltd. ) and a small, but growing orthopedic implant company. The senior BMC executive who was recruiting Lent was clear on what he wanted him to do. "Look," he said, "I've got a problem. Boehringer Mannheim in the US is really two things: hips and strips [i.e., orthopedic implants and blood glucose monitors]. I really like those businesses--they're very profitable. But you've got to get us diversified out of hips and strips and get DePuy into the global marketplace."

It was a nice problem to have. Best-known for its market leading franchise in blood glucose testing, BMC had a...