MDO wins ASBPE Azbee Awards for overall excellence and Women in Medtech (2025)

April 18, 2025 By Jim Hammerand

Medical Design & Outsourcing and members of our team are national finalists for a top honor in the annual American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) Awards of Excellence competition.

The ASBPE Awards of Excellence, also called the Azbee Awards, recognize the highest quality reporting, editing and design in business-to-business, trade, association and professional publications.

Medical Design & Outsourcing is a 2025 national finalist in the category of digital magazine of the year, one of the program’s top awards for overall excellence. The ASBPE will name the 2025 gold, silver and bronze winners on May 27.

This award recognizes the work of Editor in Chief Chris Newmarker, Managing Editor Jim Hammerand, VP and Creative Director Matthew Claney, Senior Editor Danielle Kirsh, Associate Editor Sean Whooley, DeviceTalks Editorial Director Tom Salemi and DeviceTalks Managing Editor Kayleen Brown.

The digital magazine of the year award is for “consistent editorial and design quality, as well as extraordinary reader service from the digital platform,” ASBPE says, with winners judged on “quality of writing, reporting and editing; value and usefulness to the reader; editorial organization; and layout and design, in regard to the flow and style of individual issues, as well as across three consecutive issues.”

Medical Design & Outsourcing submitted our September 2024 Medtech Big 100 issue, our October 2024 Women in Medtech issue, and our November 2024 Medical Device Handbook issue. (You can and our twice-weekly email newsletter here.)

In September, our annual Medtech Big 100 project identified, described and ranked the world’s largest device companies by annual revenue, employee count and R&D spending (both by total budget and as a percentage of revenue). Our reporting goes beyond securities filings and includes data that wouldn’t otherwise be publicly available. We obtain and verify data for foreign and privately owned companies directly from our sources to make this the industry’s authoritative ranking. We also use this data for our annual state-of-the-industry analysis, all of which we share online as a digital resource. This issue also featured coverage of cutting-edge technologies from Big 100 companies such as pulsed field ablation, cardiac implants, surgical robotics and more that enable safer and more effective treatment for some of the leading causes of death and disability.

In October, our Women in Medtech issue featured a rare interview with the industry’s most powerful woman, Abbott medical devices leader Lisa Earnhardt, an interview with new FDA CDRH Director Dr. Michelle Tarver, plus analysis of the industry’s lack of woman leaders (and ways to correct that) and coverage of treatment disparities for female patients. This issue also included technical contributions on medtech manufacturing, materials and device sterilization.

And in November, our annual Medical Device Handbook went deep into the technologies driving the most important trends in medtech, from our cover story on the microscopic, radioactive oncology devices that slow or kill hard-to-treat tumors to guides for advanced materials/manufacturing methods and tips for complying with new regulations.

Our Women in Medtech issue also won a 2025 regional bronze award in the Heartland region (which covers the Cleveland, Ohio headquarters of our owner, WTWH Media) in the category of best special issue or supplement.

Medical Design & Outsourcing won regional ASBPE awards in 2024 and a host of regional and national honors in 2023, including an honorable mention in the overall excellence category of best digital magazine.

Medical Design & Outsourcing inspires and enables life-saving innovation and collaboration across the medtech industry. Each edition features actionable technical advice and industry intel for — and from — medical device designers, engineers, researchers and other professionals at medtech developers, manufacturers, suppliers and third-party partners.

Our editorial strategy pairs uniquely valuable and authentic tips and insights with engaging, informative visuals through staff reporting, analysis and interviews. We also work closely with experts in our audience to develop and publish bylined contributions sharing their expertise for the benefit of others in the industry.

The ASBPE website has a full list of 2025 regional winners and national finalists, including regionaland national awards for other WTWH Media publications.