BD Announces Settlement of Pending Lawsuit

FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J. -- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) announced that the company has entered into an agreement July 1, 2004 to settle the lawsuit filed against it by Retractable Technologies, Inc. (RTI) in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas in Texarkana, Texas.

"This agreement will enable us to focus all of our energies and resources on our most important task -- meeting significant healthcare needs through the production of safe, effective and competitively-priced products," said Edward J. Ludwig, chairman, president and CEO of BD.

Under the terms of the agreement, the suit against BD will be dismissed with prejudice, and BD will pay $100 million to RTI.  In addition, BD and RTI have exchanged releases. BD will record a pretax charge of $100 million ($63 million after taxes and approximately 24 cents per diluted share) in its 2004 fiscal third quarter results.

BD is a medical technology company that serves healthcare institutions, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, industry and the general public.  BD manufactures and sells a broad range of medical supplies, devices, laboratory equipment and diagnostic products.  For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2003, BD reported total revenues of $4.528 billion.

Source: Becton, Dickinson and Company