applause 3M Abbott most-admired Fortune
[Photo by Guillermo Latorre on Unsplash]

Medtech giants  3M (NYSE:MMM) and Abbott (NYSE:ABT) made it into the top 50 of Fortune‘s 2021 World’s Most Admired Companies list.

3M — a manufacturing conglomerate that also has one of the largest medical device businesses in the world — came in at No. 24, up from No. 29 in the 2020 list. Abbott meanwhile was No. 42, up from No. 52.

Both companies have been playing important roles in efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

3M is an important supplier of N95 masks and other protective gear for healthcare and other essential workers.

Abbott in early 2020 developed three molecular diagnostic tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus within a 30-day time span. By the late summer, it won an FDA emergency use authorization in the late summer for its speedy BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card antigen test.

Other medical device companies making it into the Fortune most admired companies list include Boston Scientific (No. 94), Danaher (No. 120), Medtronic (No. 211), Stryker (No. 283), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (No. 297).

“We’re honored to once again be selected by Fortune for this prestigious recognition,” Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha said in a news release.

Korn Ferry on behalf of Fortune determined the best-regarded companies in 52 industries, asking executives, directors, and analysts to rate enterprises in their own industry on nine criteria. Criteria ranged from investment value and quality of management and products to social responsibility and talent attraction.