In the second quarter of 2018, Stryker reported a 10.3 percent increase in net sales to $3.3 billion, as well as a strong quarter for organic sales growth.
While orthopedics net sales increased 8 percent in the quarter to $1.2 billion, spine and neurotechnology was up 20.1 percent to $600 million. During the company's second quarter conference call, CEO Kevin Lobo and Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations Katherine Owens discussed how the Mako robot sales were helping drive the company's success and where they see the biggest opportunities for growth in the future.
Here are five key quotes from the call, according to a transcript in Seeking Alpha:
Kevin Lobo: "Orthopedics organic growth of 7 percent was once again led by knees and trauma and extremities; Mako momentum continues with over 550 robots installed globally and with high demand we are confident regarding the outlook for continued strong robot sales."
Katherine Owens: "Over 40 percent of the robots sold in Q2 were in competitive accounts where Stryker either had no new market share or share well below our average level. During the quarter, roughly 160 surgeons were trained on the total knee, bringing the total number of surgeons trained since launch to approximately 1,200…Overall, we are pleased with the continued adoption of the Mako robot and it's clearly enabling us to drive meaningful knee market share. We're also collecting clinical data to evaluate the myriad of outcomes with the Mako Total Knee and expect data at the upcoming major orthopedic meetings later this year and more significantly in 2019."
KO: "Once we get into these accounts where we haven't had any business, it gives us the opportunity to then sell the full portfolio of products whether it's our 3D printed cement with implants or our broader reconstructive offering. And what we see in accounts where we have a robot in the U.S. that total knee revenue in those accounts is growing about five times faster than the core funding accounts that don't have a robot."
KO: "We think there [are] probably 4,000 or so robot or orthopedic practices in the U.S. that are the bulk of candidates for robots. So we're pleased that we're approaching 500 robots sold in the U.S. and obviously more broadly. But that's a lot of runway still left for us to continue to drive robot sales, and we expect to continue to grow with that group."
KO: "[The spine market] remains a tough market. It has been challenging for the market overall. But it's a market we are overall 100 percent committed to. It is the largest market in orthopedics. There is a tremendous unmet need. And we have the benefit given our size and diversity of our product portfolio that we can weather through when the certain business is challenged as spine has been…We do need to continue and we are with allocating more R&D dollars that continue to refresh our portfolio."