About

Mircea Despa, Associate Director, R&D, leads the Smart Device and Data Sciences group at BD Technologies and Innovation, overseeing digital health R&D, spanning early-stage opportunity assessment to evidence generation through clinical studies.

Under his leadership, the group has developed and is currently performing clinical research with BD’s first prototype interconnected disease management system for free-living patients, composed of hardware, software, and data algorithms, designed using behavioural science principles. Prior to this, Dr Despa led the department’s multidisciplinary efforts to develop smart devices.

He has 18 years of experience in the medical, life sciences, and telecommunications industries. Before joining BD, Dr Despa worked at Corning, conducting R&D for optical bio-sensors, biochemical reactors, and speciality optical fibres.

He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Bucharest Polytechnic Institute (Romania), and a MS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Engineering Science, from Louisiana State University (US).

Contributions

INTERVIEW

MIRCEA DESPA & DOUG McCLURE, BD

In this interview, Dr Despa and Mr McClure discuss BD’s approach to connecting devices in its portfolio to meet patient, pharma and other stakeholder requirements. Their discussion focuses in particular on safety and security, highlighting the connected wearable injector, BD Libertas™ with Smart Option, as an example.