STEADY SALES, SMOOTH MARRIAGE AT DEPUYSYNTHES (Orthopedics This Week)
On April 16, 2013, DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., the biggest orthopedic player on the block reported relatively flat sales for the first quarter of the year, if you exclude Synthes sales. Sales were up 60% on an operational basis had Synthes been included. The results continue to confirm to analysts that the orthopedic market has stabilized.
Total sales were $2.385 billion. There were 1.5 fewer selling days in the quarter then the previous year that some Wall Street analysts thought could have added up to 3% in sales.
Hips, Knees, Spine and Trauma
Source: Johnson & Johnson
Worldwide medical devices and diagnostics sales (where DePuy Ortho resides) were $7.1 billion. Synthes contributed approximately 14% worldwide operational sales growth, net of the divestiture of the DePuy trauma business.
On an operational basis, knees were down 1%, hips up 2%, spine declined 7% and trauma rose 2%. BMO Capital Markets analyst Joanne Wuensch estimated that the company took market share in hips.
Stable Market
Dominic Caruso, the company’s CFO, told analysts that while he believes that overall healthcare utilization trends contin...
