Stryker
Share price on Dec. 31, 2019: $209.93
Share price on Dec. 31, 2020: $245.04
Change: +17%
Stryker (NYSE:SYK) took the challenges posed by 2020 head-on, with CEO Kevin Lobo managing to navigate through the pandemic’s impact on the orthopedic space, which included deferred procedures and slow-downs with implants.
The Kalamazoo, Mich.-based company managed to pull off a major M&A move in 2020, too, with the $4.7 billion purchase of Wright Medical, which finally cleared necessary hurdles with the FTC in December 2020.
From a financial perspective, Stryker’s revenue was down –6.2% year-over-year, to more than $10 billion for the first nine months of 2020 as COVID-19 curtailed elective procedures. But sales during the same period were down –7.5% for Smith+Nephew, –15.1% for Johnson & Johnson’s ortho business, and –15.7% for Zimmer Biomet, some of Stryker’s major competitors in the space. The company managed to beat second- and third-quarter projections from analysts, even with procedure deferrals, too.
Stryker didn’t let the pandemic deter its business from an innovation standpoint, either, developing and launching a number of products over the course of 2020, including:
- The T2 ICF intramedullary nailing system.
- The Niagara lateral access system.
- The ProCuity wireless smart hospital bed.
The company has already started off 2021 well with the purchase of privately-held OrthoSensor and its Verasense intraoperative sensor tech that could further enhance the ortho giant’s Mako robots. The momentum gained from the successes in 2020, even in the face of adversity, should help Stryker in 2021, too.
