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This year started with major moves as Stryker divested its spine business and Zimmer Biomet bought Paragon 28. J&J MedTech provided the bookend, announcing its spin off of DePuy Synthes along with its third quarter earnings. Below are selected comments from the leaders of top orthopedic companies as they reported 3Q earnings.
Top Players Remain Active in Portfolio Management
Tim Schmid, J&J EVP of MedTech
Ortho is a great business, but frankly one that participates in lower growth markets. This is all about shrinking to grow faster for MedTech. And last time I looked, [Wall Street is] not rewarding size, but rather best-in-class performance, and that’s the path that we’re on. As you already have heard, we expect the separation would increase our top line growth and margins following the completion.
Kevin Lobo, Stryker CEO
We do have a strong balance sheet. We can do larger deals if they are going to be value creating for the company. It’s always hard to predict the exact timing on deals. So, we do plan to be active. It is the #1 use of capital. That is our first priority is to use it for acquisitions. We remain on the hunt.
Ivan Tornos, Zimmer Biomet CEO
We wanted to acquire something that was growing higher. We got in a higher market growth rate with Paragon 28. We wanted to build a platform, not just buy one company. We’ve done that, whether it’s lower trauma, whether it’s foot and ankle and other components, biologics, we got that going on. We wanted to have a more meaningful presence in the ASC space. [Paragon 28] is enabling that. I wanted to buy a company that had innovation today, but a pipeline for tomorrow. And all of that remains true with Paragon 28.
Creating Account Stickiness Through Enabling Tech
Deepak Nath, Smith+Nephew CEO
I’m particularly encouraged by where we’re placing CORI, teaching institutions where historically we’ve been somewhat under-indexed and there’s quite a bit of effort we’ve put into strengthening our presence, which has been good to see. Our placements into ASCs have also been very, very encouraging. Where we placed CORI, we see above market levels of utilization and where we also placed CORI, we see great uptake. So all of those are very encouraging.
Massimo Calafiore, Orthofix CEO
Now let’s turn to one of the most exciting developments in our spine portfolio, the limited market release of our new VIRATA Spinal Fixation system. Every aspect of VIRATA, from our proprietary pedicle screw design to intuitive instrumentation that integrates seamlessly with 7D FLASH navigation, is engineered to optimize the surgical workflow, boost surgeon confidence and accelerate procedural adoption.
Thierry Pieton, Medtronic EVP and CFO
There’s significant investment going into CST to continue to develop the AiBLE ecosystem that has enabled us to make the CST business more sticky with the customers from a device perspective, and gradually improve the margin.
Mixed Signals for Foot and Ankle Volumes
Damien McDonald, Enovis CEO
We did see a bit of a rebound in that space, which is great. Meeting with the team at the AOFAS conference in Savannah was a pretty exciting time for us, talking about MIS surgery. We talked a lot about how there’s a very solid order book in terms of the way that market is rebounding. So we’re continuing to see this team execute. We’ve got a lot of investment in innovation and customer engagement with them, and we’re looking forward to them being a growth driver for us.
John Treace, Treace Medical Founder and CEO
In October, we conducted a survey with a cross-section of our surgeon customers and the responses to date have indicated that on average, their bunion surgical volumes year-to-date through October had decreased approximately 7% compared to the same period last year. This is consistent with what we are hearing from hospitals and surgical centers, which are reporting that outpatient elective surgeries are being deferred, particularly for commercially insured patients. The more elective the procedure, the more likely they are to be pushed out.
This year started with major moves as Stryker divested its spine business and Zimmer Biomet bought Paragon 28. J&J MedTech provided the bookend, announcing its spin off of DePuy Synthes along with its third quarter earnings. Below are selected comments from the leaders of top orthopedic companies as they reported 3Q earnings.
Top Players...
This year started with major moves as Stryker divested its spine business and Zimmer Biomet bought Paragon 28. J&J MedTech provided the bookend, announcing its spin off of DePuy Synthes along with its third quarter earnings. Below are selected comments from the leaders of top orthopedic companies as they reported 3Q earnings.
Top Players Remain Active in Portfolio Management
Tim Schmid, J&J EVP of MedTech
Ortho is a great business, but frankly one that participates in lower growth markets. This is all about shrinking to grow faster for MedTech. And last time I looked, [Wall Street is] not rewarding size, but rather best-in-class performance, and that’s the path that we’re on. As you already have heard, we expect the separation would increase our top line growth and margins following the completion.
Kevin Lobo, Stryker CEO
We do have a strong balance sheet. We can do larger deals if they are going to be value creating for the company. It’s always hard to predict the exact timing on deals. So, we do plan to be active. It is the #1 use of capital. That is our first priority is to use it for acquisitions. We remain on the hunt.
Ivan Tornos, Zimmer Biomet CEO
We wanted to acquire something that was growing higher. We got in a higher market growth rate with Paragon 28. We wanted to build a platform, not just buy one company. We’ve done that, whether it’s lower trauma, whether it’s foot and ankle and other components, biologics, we got that going on. We wanted to have a more meaningful presence in the ASC space. [Paragon 28] is enabling that. I wanted to buy a company that had innovation today, but a pipeline for tomorrow. And all of that remains true with Paragon 28.
Creating Account Stickiness Through Enabling Tech
Deepak Nath, Smith+Nephew CEO
I’m particularly encouraged by where we’re placing CORI, teaching institutions where historically we’ve been somewhat under-indexed and there’s quite a bit of effort we’ve put into strengthening our presence, which has been good to see. Our placements into ASCs have also been very, very encouraging. Where we placed CORI, we see above market levels of utilization and where we also placed CORI, we see great uptake. So all of those are very encouraging.
Massimo Calafiore, Orthofix CEO
Now let’s turn to one of the most exciting developments in our spine portfolio, the limited market release of our new VIRATA Spinal Fixation system. Every aspect of VIRATA, from our proprietary pedicle screw design to intuitive instrumentation that integrates seamlessly with 7D FLASH navigation, is engineered to optimize the surgical workflow, boost surgeon confidence and accelerate procedural adoption.
Thierry Pieton, Medtronic EVP and CFO
There’s significant investment going into CST to continue to develop the AiBLE ecosystem that has enabled us to make the CST business more sticky with the customers from a device perspective, and gradually improve the margin.
Mixed Signals for Foot and Ankle Volumes
Damien McDonald, Enovis CEO
We did see a bit of a rebound in that space, which is great. Meeting with the team at the AOFAS conference in Savannah was a pretty exciting time for us, talking about MIS surgery. We talked a lot about how there’s a very solid order book in terms of the way that market is rebounding. So we’re continuing to see this team execute. We’ve got a lot of investment in innovation and customer engagement with them, and we’re looking forward to them being a growth driver for us.
John Treace, Treace Medical Founder and CEO
In October, we conducted a survey with a cross-section of our surgeon customers and the responses to date have indicated that on average, their bunion surgical volumes year-to-date through October had decreased approximately 7% compared to the same period last year. This is consistent with what we are hearing from hospitals and surgical centers, which are reporting that outpatient elective surgeries are being deferred, particularly for commercially insured patients. The more elective the procedure, the more likely they are to be pushed out.
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Mike Evers is a Senior Market Analyst and writer with over 15 years of experience in the medical industry, spanning cardiac rhythm management, ER coding and billing, and orthopedics. He joined ORTHOWORLD in 2018, where he provides market analysis and editorial coverage.
