Despite the pandemic, Medtronic is still focused on growth in the spine arena and CEO Geoff Martha said the company exceeded growth expectations during the 2020 Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference.
On Sept. 14, Mr. Martha was interviewed by Morgan Stanley's David Lewis about the company's current position and where it sees the biggest opportunity for growth. Medtronic acquired Medicrea, an artificial intelligence, predictive modeling and patient specific implants company, in July and continues to integrate the Titan Spine technology into its portfolio.
In 2019, Medtronic led the spine surgery market with 29 percent market share, but Johnson & Johnson and NuVasive were right behind at 16 percent and 13 percent. All companies have reported continued growth.
"In spine, we're growing faster than all of the multinationals," said Mr. Martha, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. "We grew as fast as NuVasive and we did not expect to grow quite as fast. So we're taking share from everybody except Globus right now overall, and that makes me mad. We're taking share in spine and that's going to continue with all the technology we've got there."
He also said Medtronic's deal with Medicrea is going well and its acquisition of Titan spine is a "home run." In May, the company reported Titan Spine contributed $15 million to its fourth quarter revenue as part of the Restorative Therapies Group. Bone morphogenetic protein sales dropped during the quarter due to the pandemic, and overall spine revenue was down 31 percent.