Veritor Demand Strong for Becton, Dickinson in the Second Quarter, Diabetes Spin-Off in 2022

We're maintaining our fair value estimate and our narrow moat rating for Becton, Dickinson following the release of its second-quarter results. The second quarter saw similar underlying trends as the previous one; BD continues to benefit from COVID-19-related Veritor sales (albeit at lower levels) and is seeing some modest recovery in procedure volume in the developed world. BD also announced the spin-off of its diabetes franchise in 2022; we have not yet incorporated this in our model, but we don't anticipate the effect of this will be significant on our overall valuation of the company. Additionally, as we incorporate our new capital allocation framework, we are setting the company's rating at Standard.