Last week Zimmer Biomet reported that its third quarter net sales increased 1.3 percent year-over-year, hitting $1.8 billion.
The company's net sales in the Americas were up 1.5 percent, reaching $1.1 billion. Here, President and CEO Bryan Hanson discusses the key themes of the quarter and where he sees the company headed in the future. Mr. Hanson discussed these themes in the third quarter conference call, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha.
Bryan Hanson on the manufacturing facility quality: "Our ongoing efforts remain on track, and we continue to keep the FDA updated on our progress. As we have stated before at this time, our quality remediation does not restrict our ability to produce or ship products out of our factories, and as a result of that, it would not have an impact on our supply recovery sustainability. Importantly, we also continue to believe that with the work that we have in front of us this will not put us in a position that will materially impact our financial forecast or projections."
BH on new innovations: "The Persona Revision system and the Rosa robotics knee application are progressing well versus timeline, and as a matter of fact, both are waiting on regulatory approval. Regarding Rosa knee specifically, we are excited to be ahead of schedule to perform our first case in Australia."
BH on 2019 goals: "Because our primary goal is in fact driving revenue growth, I want to stress that we will continue to invest in appropriate growth initiatives, and that we expect those investments to increase over the next several quarters, not decrease. These initiatives are already having an impact and will be crucial to achieving the goals that we have for consistent at-market or better growth by 2020. In addition, we continue to look aggressively at active portfolio management opportunities that further diversify our portfolio."
BH on projections for the fourth quarter: "We will likely see less growth, or we'll see less growth in the fourth quarter revenue than we did in [the third quarter] …A lot of that has to do with the timing and the cement issue. When I think about beyond that, we haven't given any guidance at this point beyond 2018, but I want to continue to reference the fact that I do believe that the turnaround would require us to be in that 2 percent to 3 percent [growth] consistently. I expect that to happen in 2020."
BH on robotic spine technology: "One of the biggest things that people are excited about, obviously, is to be able to bring robotics to spine. We are still on track with what we have been saying. We are also waiting on regulatory approval for the spine application for Rosa…we have got new products coming; we have got the channel in the right place, and we are going to have our first kickoff in a while with that team coming up here in the beginning of the year."