NEW YORK — Covidien Ltd. chief executive officer Richard Meelia will reshape the company, the world's second- biggest maker of disposable medical products, through acquisitions and divestitures after this week's spin-off from Tyco International Ltd.The former Tyco Healthcare, which owns the US Surgical and Kendall brands, is now free to restructure and divest less- profitable areas, as soon as the next two years, Meelia said in a June interview. Covidien is also free to spend more money on research and development, as well as sales staff, he said.

"We're not going to sit and let a lot of time go by before we start making a lot of moves," Meelia said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We're going to be very aggressive."

Since 2002, the company has almost doubled its research and development budget, Meelia said. As Tyco Healthcare, the company expended $262 million in fiscal 2006, up from $134.3 million in 2002. Johnson & Johnson, Covidien's only larger competitor in disposable medical products, spent $7.1 billion on research in fiscal 2006 and almost $4 billion in 2002.

Covidien is "recovering from years of underinvestment within Tyco," said Taylor Harris, an analyst at JP Morgan Securities Inc., in a note to investors yesterday. He rates the stock "Neutral."

Before the official spin-off, the shares rose as high as $46.51 and fell as low as $42, indicating investors may have reservations about Covidien's ability to compete.