Medtronic plans to separate from its diabetes business and launch it as an independent company—one that will count more than 8,000 global employees and carry a nearly $3 billion portfolio of insulin delivery systems and wearable blood sugar trackers.
The medtech giant said it aims to complete the spinoff within the next 18 months, with the goal of taking the new company public through an IPO. It is set to be led by Medtronic’s current diabetes president, Que Dallara.
“Active portfolio management is an important lever to delivering on our ongoing growth and success, and this decision shifts the Medtronic portfolio to have intense focus on our highest margin growth drivers where we have our strongest core competencies,” Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha said in the company’s announcement. “Que's impressive track record in driving growth and innovation has set Diabetes on a path to continued success, ensuring the needs of individuals with diabetes are met around the globe.”
Medtronic will continue with its primarily business-to-business units, focused on cardiovascular devices, neuroscience tech and medical-surgical tools. The company said its diabetes division, by comparison—which represents about 8% of Medtronic’s total revenue—has predominantly sold directly to consumers, while maintaining two dedicated, high-volume manufacturing facilities.
The spin follows Medtronic’s previous moves to slim down its operations: It hived off its kidney care catalog through its Mozarc Medical joint venture with DaVita in 2023, and later exited the hospital ventilator market in 2024 after a post-pandemic drop in demand.
The decision is also the latest in a slew of divestments across the medtech industry, with Baxter selling off its renal division to the Carlyle Group, and BD launching its diabetes unit as Embecta.
Medtronic said about 80% of the $2.75 billion it collected from diabetes sales during its 2025 fiscal calendar came from recurring sources—such as disposable equipment for its continuous glucose monitor systems and smart insulin pens, as well as software and service subscriptions.
Medtronic pegs the current global diabetes device market at about $16 billion, and said it expects the new company to continue the momentum the division has enjoyed in the past year-and-a-half, with a 10% annual growth rate.
In April, the FDA approved the combination of the company’s flagship automated insulin pump and its newest CGM, the Simplera Sync, following up on a European green light for the system last year. The U.S. commercial rollout enabling its use with the MiniMed 780G pump is slated for this fall.
Meanwhile, last November, Medtronic secured a clearance for its smart insulin pen app, designed for people managing their diabetes with multiple daily injections. The InPen app also links with the Simplera sensor and provides alerts for potentially missed or inaccurate doses.
Alongside the spinoff announcement, Medtronic posted the annual earnings report for its 2025 fiscal year, which wrapped up April 25.
Its fourth-quarter revenue totaled $8.92 billion, for a 3.9% gain, while its full-year haul grew 3.6% to $33.53 billion. Its annual operating profit, meanwhile, was up 16% to $5.95 billion, with a margin of 17.8%.
“We had a strong close to our fiscal year, and I'm excited to see the progress we are making as our growth drivers continue to build momentum. Operationally, we translated our accelerating revenue growth into earnings leverage, as we delivered at the upper end of the commitments that we laid out a year ago,” Martha said. “We are now at an inflection point as we accelerate our speed of travel to higher, more profitable growth.”
The company’s cardiovascular division grew 5.5% to $12.48 billion in annual sales, driven largely by the recent launches of its Affera and PulseSelect pulsed field ablation systems, as well as gains in its Micra transcatheter pacing implant and Evolut FX+ aortic heart valve replacement.
In neuroscience, growth in spinal cord and brain stimulator revenues helped push the unit to $9.49 billion, up 4.7% over the prior year. Medtronic’s adaptive deep-brain stimulation approach for Parkinson’s disease began rolling out across the U.S. and Europe at the top of this year.
Medical-surgical tools—including endoscopy, acute care and patient monitoring—decreased 0.1% year-over-year, to $8.41 billion. The company recently submitted its Hugo soft tissue robot to the FDA for review, in pursuit of an initial green light in urologic procedures.
Finally, the diabetes division was up 10.7% annually and 10.4% for the fourth quarter, with the latter bringing in $728 million. The company said that revenue was boosted by “low-20s growth in pumps and increasing CGM attachment” as users upgraded to the Simplera Sync.
Looking ahead, the company said it recently submitted 510(k) clearance applications to the FDA for an interoperable pump and algorithm that would work with an exclusive CGM based on Abbott's FreeStyle Libre sensor platform, in a project first announced last August.