Amit Limaye

We are the designers of supporting a greener planet: Vegetable Gardener. Black Belt. Inventor.

For Amit Limaye, the last 14 years at BD have helped provide him with a richness of experiences that have led up to his current role as the Director of the Sustainable Medical Technology Institute (SMTI).

“My role, and that of my team, is to assess how we make products and solutions, as well as how they are used and disposed of, and then identify how we can lower our carbon footprint overall. Sustainability is a part of a larger mandate for the company under our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) 2030 Strategy,” explained Amit. “And the decisions we make today will absolutely impact our product development and customers in the next 10, 15 years and beyond.”

Career Journey at BD

Amit began his career at BD as a Principal Engineer in February 2009 within the diabetes business unit, which was spun off from BD and is now called embecta. He held the role for nearly five years before moving to a Team Leader role in a different BD business, Medication Delivery Solutions (MDS), and then onto a dual role in Diabetes Care R&D as the Manager for Sustaining Engineering, and Program Management from 2015 to 2017. Concurrently, between 2016 and 2019, he served in the role of Manager of New Product Development & Innovation.

He was promoted to Associate Director of R&D Program Management Centers of Excellence in 2019, where he led multiple high-stakes high-visibility pan-BD projects and was promoted again to Director of R&D Sustainability in 2022, which includes overseeing the SMTI.

As a part of its Together We Advance ESG strategy, BD has formed the SMTI to reduce the environmental impact of its product portfolio. In his role as the founding member of the institute, Amit has had the opportunity to create the strategy for the institute and make it actionable, including hiring a very talented team to take on this critical challenge.

“The Institute is a model within BD that brings together a cross-section of researchers, engineers, quality, regulatory, policy, and operational expertise to focus on reducing the environmental impact of the company’s three business segments in three areas: adopting sustainable product design strategies, developing and deploying sustainable sterilization technologies, and addressing materials of concern,” said Amit. “I started at BD as an individual contributor and then took on roles of increasing responsibility – I can say with confidence that all of the roles I held, including my current one, have enabled me to make an impact.”

From Chemical Engineering to Medical Device Innovator

Amit studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur where he graduated with a degree in Biotechnology and Bioengineering. He went on to secure his PhD from the University Connecticut in Chemical Engineering, where he studied nanoparticles and aerosol physics. He then worked in the pharmaceutical industry and combination products industry focusing on pulmonary drug delivery, before joining BD.  Amit is listed as the inventor on 35-issued US patents and has another 25+ additional patents filed across such topics as electro-mechanical systems, designs, materials, processes, and more.

Mentors Leave Their Mark

Amit calls out that he’s had the benefit of many mentors during his career, individuals that have given him sage advice along his career path – from a former college professor to a manager early on in his career, to mentors in senior and executive management at BD.  

“I’ve been lucky to have many mentors, each of whom have allowed me to feed my desire for learning. That in turn created more opportunities, and their advice enabled me to navigate a large organization like BD, for which I’m grateful,” said Amit. “I’m exhilarated that I get to perform the work I do at BD. It aligns with my purpose and my values very well.”

Keys to Success at BD

For Amit, he quickly points to two things to be successful at BD: A natural curiosity and a desire to grow and learn.

“There are so many opportunities here through formal and informal learning, if you have a learning agility mindset, BD is a good place for you,” he said. “This is a very happening place when it comes to learning new things.”

Personal Pursuits Outside of Work

When Amit is not collaborating across BD, he has several hobbies outside of work. He is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors at BVMI (Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative), a non-profit organization that makes healthcare accessible to underserved populations in Bergen County, New Jersey.

On the home front, he likes sailing, Taekwondo (he holds a Black Belt), and tending to his and his family’s hearty vegetable garden. Another thing he is passionate about is, naturally, supporting environmental efforts – like composting.

“We are avid composters at our house, and I am constantly experimenting – using my background in biotechnology, I suppose. A couple of years ago, we were putting bags of garbage on the curbside every week. We have now figured out how to divert all the food waste away from garbage into compost. This has dramatically reduced the overall volume that we put into the landfill. Between recycling and compositing, I am happy to share that we have now reduced our curbside garbage collection to about 10% of what we were doing a few years ago,” concluded Amit.