So, important area, important investment area for us in EP definitely benefited from kind of the investments that we made during COVID. And I think it’s an important product to have. It’s ability to convert I think it will convert a portion of the market. My sense is Cryo was probably the first one, but how much of Cryo, still up to see, but definitely an interesting area for investment.
Travis Steed: Great. Thank you.
Scott Leinenweber: We will take one more question.
Operator: Thank you. And our last question will come from Matt Miksic from Barclays. Your line is open.
Matt Miksic: Hey. Thanks for getting me in. I figure maybe just if we could wrap it up with an update on a couple of the pipeline products, the five products, Robert, that you have highlighted in the past, Amulet and CardioMEMS, maybe if you could just talk a little bit about where you are with these launches in terms of size, scale, momentum and maybe what kinds of catalysts we can look for or metrics we can see for these two products this year? Thanks.
Robert Ford: Sure. I mean I think those five products that I have discussed on the last call, and we talked about them exiting at an annual run rate of 500. They actually exited at a run rate of 550 and they grew around €“ they grew around 100%. So, I expect those five products to kind of have maybe not 100%, but pretty high growth rate in next €“ in this year. Regarding Amulet, listen, I think it’s €“ like I said, it’s a great space. We have been rolling out the product last year, building the sales force. Key focus here is obviously ensuring good implanting technique with the physicians. We are in about 225 accounts right now. I expect that in terms of growth catalysts, getting more share of those existing accounts as the physicians become more and more accustomed to using our product and see the benefits of using our product versus other systems.
I think that will be a growth catalyst and then expanding. We do want to start to expand more as our sales force has increased, the competency of our sales team has increased and our clinical team has increased, we feel more confident now to be able to kind of expand to more accounts. And that’s what we will be focused on. Another key catalyst of growth here is obviously the trial that we have been investing on in catalysts, which is to compare Amulet to novel oral anticoagulant. So, that’s another opportunity. It’s not one in 2023, but continuing that enrollment in that trial is an important driver for kind of the long-term growth strategy here of Amulet. CardioMEMS has done very good. We saw an indication expansion last year in the U.S., seen a nice step-up in sales.
I think it’s a great long-term opportunity. I think it’s part of those five products that are driving a lot of growth. And I would say probably the next kind of big area, I mean we have been investing in sales force and rolling this out. Next big area here is working on that NCD. I think that will remove some of maybe some regional hang-ups in terms of reimbursement. So, the NCD is something that we are going to be working on this year with the data that we have collected as part of all of our trials. So, I think they look very strong as part of that group of five products. I would like to close up the call here. Just a few remarks. The operating environment still remains challenging, right. But it’s not as challenging as we saw back in Q3 of 2022 in October.
There are definitely signs here of stability. There are signs of improvement, whether it’s in the macroeconomic side or whether it’s specifically in the segments that we are competing in. And Abbott is well positioned. We are well positioned to both capitalize on this improving environment or to navigate if there is any unforeseen volatility over here. That’s what our portfolio has been built for. That’s what our balance sheet is set up for. It’s set up for these kind of situations and these kind of scenarios. We always knew that pandemic level testing was not a base case. We knew that eventually this would move down to an endemic like testing. And we are €“ our view here is that in 2023, we will start this process of moving to that. And so as a result of that, we did do this forward investing into our growth areas, whether it’s devices, diagnostics, certain areas in EPD or nutrition.
And that’s allowed us to grow at the pre-pandemic level, this high-single digit top-tier growth without having to make the OpEx investment that you would expect to be able to sustain that growth. So, we are getting that flow through on the P&L and net leverage on our investments. I do recognize the cost pressures. The company recognized those cost pressures. We talked about this now to Vijay’s question, we are going to be working relentlessly on getting our gross margin back to that pre-pandemic level, and it’s a combination of working in our cost profiles and our GMI programs, but also as we accelerate the growth in our device business, that mix shift contributes to that. And finally, our balance sheet is strong and provides us the strategic flexibility we need to navigate.
And we take this balanced approach where we can provide returns to our shareholders, while at the same time, investing for the long-term. So, thank you for being on the call overall. I think Abbott is very well positioned as we kind of exit this kind of pandemic state and move into more of an endemic state. I think we are well positioned and now it’s all about execution.
Scott Leinenweber: Thank you, operator and thank you for all of your questions. This now concludes Abbott’s conference call. A webcast replay of this call will be available after 11 a.m. Central Time today on Abbott’s Investor Relations website at abbottinvestor.com. Thank you for joining us today.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
