Stryker Corporation (NYSE:SYK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Kevin Lobo: Yeah. No. Certainly, on the Neurovascular comps, I — we did have pretty good performance a year ago in Neurovascular. I think that the challenge is kind of looking at versus the prior year Neurovascular and then going back versus 2019. So, but certainly, we have had our challenges with Neurovascular in the U.S. We have had continued good growth outside the United States and I think I have mentioned on prior calls that the ischemic market segment has certainly gotten softer. There are a lot more competitors that are kind of distracting and taking up time. We still think it’s a great market. There’s still a lot of patients that are — that have not been treated. We are only treating a small percentage of people that have these large vessel occlusions in the brain.

So we do think it’s a good long-term market. We are launching a new coil called Tetra Coil here in the United States, which is exciting. And we will continue to invest. We have a deal that’s pending. Obviously, regulatory clearances before it closes on a one and done for the hemorrhagic segment. We are very excited about that. acquisition. That will give us another shot in the arm. So, yes, we have had our challenges in the U.S. this year. We continue to grow very well outside the United States. It’s still a market we are very committed to. That’s kind of on the Neurovascular side. On the Spine side, look, the launch of Mako Spine is going to be critical. The Q Guidance launch is going very well and that was important for us. We had a gap, obviously, with enabling technologies, which is really important in the Spine segment.

So I do believe this is, 2023 will be a year where we will continue to grow kind of around the market growth rate and then really get ready for the Mako launch to be able to start to grow above market. So, yes, they are not as glowing, the divisions, right now as some of our other divisions. But they are certainly competing well in the marketplace, growing roughly in line with the market, maybe a little bit below, but still highly profitable, highly important businesses to the long-term future of Stryker.

Ryan Zimmerman: Very helpful. And then if I could just ask a follow-up. I mean this was the first time you really, I think, put those time lines out on spine and shoulder. We have kind of danced around these topics for some time. What is it now that’s a comfort to put those out there and ensure that those will be on time with the time lines you outlined?

Kevin Lobo: Yeah. As a company, we tend to be pretty conservative on getting time lines and robots are hard, right? Ask any of the companies who are trying to launch robots, whether they are in heart tissue robotics or soft robotics. Robots are difficult. What gives us confidence is our prototypes are built. We have tested it with surgeons. We have gotten feedback. We have had some meetings in one case with the agency to get an idea on the regulatory pathway. So we have enough in the pipeline right now. There’s always a little bit of uncertainty around approvals and full launch. And notice the term I used was initial launch, right? So we do expect to get approved and to start doing cases. But then as you do those initial cases, you might have to refine some of the training and things, so it might be a little bit slow out of the gate, we will see.

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