Walter Eisner • Thu, November 20th, 2014
Medtronic Inc.’s spine’s most recent quarter’s sales beat Wall Street expectations. Most surprisingly, Infuse is credited with causing the surprise.
Yes, you read that right. Biologic sales for Medtronic’s second quarter rose 9% on a reported basis while Core Spine and Interventional Spine, which consists of the company’s balloon kyphoplasty product line slipped 1% and 6%, respectively. Management said the company’s kyphoplasty sales were affected by a product supply issue related to the cement delivery system.
Underlying Stable BMP Demand
BMP (bone morphogenetic protein—Infuse) sales of a $120 million, according to Medtronic’s CFO Gary Ellis, grew with stable underlying demand. “While sales of BMP bounced round a bit, we do believe we have turned the corner and would expect BMP sales growth to be slightly positive going forward.”
