Stryker Corp (SYK) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Stryker Corp (NYSE: SYK) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Oct. 30, 2025

Corporate Participants:

Kevin Lobo — Chair and Chief Executive Officer

Jason Beach — Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations

Preston Wells — Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Robert Marcus — Analyst

Lawrence Biegelsen — Analyst

Ryan Zimmerman — Analyst

Travis Steed — Analyst

Unidentified Participant

Matthew Miksic — Analyst

Jenny Rabinowitz — Analyst

Philip Chickering — Analyst

Joanne Wuensch — Analyst

Michael Matson — Analyst

Danielle Antalffy — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Welcome to the Third Quarter 2025 Stryker Earnings Call. My name is Robbie, and I’ll be your operator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the conference, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This conference call is being recorded for replay purposes.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the discussions during this conference call will include forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company’s most recent filings with the SEC. Also, the discussions will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today’s press release, that is an exhibit to Stryker’s current report on Form 8-K filed today with the SEC.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Lobo, Chair and Chief Executive Officer. You may proceed, sir.

Kevin Lobo — Chair and Chief Executive Officer

Welcome to Stryker’s Third Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Preston Wells, Stryker’s CFO; and Jason Beach, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. For today’s call, I will provide opening comments followed by Jason with the trends we saw during the quarter and some product updates. Preston will then provide additional details on quarterly results and guidance before opening the call to Q&A. Our third quarter results demonstrate our broad business strength and ongoing commitment to margin expansion. We delivered strong organic sales growth of 9.5% against last year’s high 11.5% comparable. We also delivered double-digit adjusted EPS growth of 11.1% despite tariff headwinds, which picked up meaningfully versus Q2.

Our organic sales growth was driven by widespread demand across our businesses and included high single-digit growth from MedSurg and Neurotechnology, and double-digit growth from Orthopedics. Geographically, our U.S. organic sales growth of 10.6% included double-digit organic growth from our Vascular, Trauma, and Extremities, Neurocranial, and Instruments businesses, and high single-digit organic growth in Hips, Knees, and Endoscopy. We delivered 6.3% organic international sales growth with notable contributions from South Korea, Japan, and emerging markets. We continue to view international markets as a significant opportunity for long-term growth and look forward to launching many products that have already demonstrated success in the United States. We completed two small acquisitions during the quarter.

The first, Guard Medical’s NPseal products bring simplified solution for negative pressure wound treatment that strengthens our orthopedic instruments offerings. The second, Advanced Medical Balloons, brings novel patient care products to our SAGE business.

These acquisitions demonstrate our commitment to deals that deepen our portfolio and enhance growth. Backed by a healthy deal pipeline and strong balance sheet, we plan to stay active on the M&A front. We have good momentum exiting Q3 and expect a strong finish to the year. As a result, we are raising our full year 2025 outlook. We are firmly on track to deliver a second consecutive year of 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion, backed by strong execution and conviction in the sustained growth and earnings power of our businesses. I would like to thank our teams for their dedication and passion in living our mission each and every day.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Jason.

Jason Beach — Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations

Thanks, Kevin. My comments today will focus on providing updates on the current environment, the integration of Inari, and a preview of Investor Day. Procedural volumes remained healthy in the third quarter, in line with our expectations. We anticipate continued strength in procedural volumes through the end of the year. Demand for our capital products was strong once again in the quarter, and we exited Q3 with an elevated backlog. With a steady hospital capex environment, we expect continued strength in our order book. We delivered our best-ever Q3 for Mako installations, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Mako continues to see high utilization rates, further bolstering our number one position in U.S. hips and knees. In addition to Mako 4, our numerous recent product innovations continue to drive growth and interest in the marketplace. Notably, LIFEPAK 35 launched in Europe at the end of the quarter.

Next, the Inari integration continues to progress well. We continue to convert the business to our Stryker Offense with the successful onboarding of our sales professionals. The Inari business delivered double-digit pro forma organic sales growth in the quarter, highlighting robust procedural growth in the teens, partially offset by destocking, which we continue to work through. Inari remains on track to deliver double-digit pro forma sales growth in 2025 and approximately $590 million in sales for the 10 months this year as a part of Stryker. Lastly, we look forward to hosting our upcoming Investor Day on November 13th, which will be webcast live on the Investor Relations page at stryker.com. During the event, various leaders from across our businesses will discuss our long-term strategy and illustrate how we are built for growth. For our in-person attendees, we will conclude with a product fair that will showcase exciting products and innovations across our MedSurg, Neurotechnology, and Orthopedic businesses. Also, you will be able to interact with many of our leaders.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Preston.

Preston Wells — Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Jason. Today, I will focus my comments on our third quarter financial results and related drivers. Our detailed financial results have been provided in today’s press release. Organic sales growth was 9.5% for the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2024, with the same number of selling days in both periods. Pricing had a 0.4% favorable impact as we continue to see positive trends from our pricing initiatives across many of our businesses. Additionally, foreign currency had a 0.7% favorable impact on sales. Our adjusted earnings per share of $3.19 was up 11.1% from the same quarter last year, driven by our strong sales growth and margin expansion, partially offset by higher interest expense. Foreign currency translation had a favorable impact of $0.03 on adjusted earnings per share for the quarter.

Now I will provide some highlights around our quarterly segment performance. In the quarter, MedSurg and Neurotechnology had organic sales growth of 8.4%, which included 9.4% of U.S. organic growth and 5.1% of international organic growth. Instruments had U.S. organic sales growth of 11.5%, led by a double-digit performance from the Surgical Technologies business, which includes our Neptune Waste Management, SurgiCount, and Smoke Evacuation products. Endoscopy had U.S. organic sales growth of 7.9%, led by a robust double-digit performance from our Sports Medicine business and near double-digit growth from our Core Endoscopy portfolio, somewhat offset by lower sales in the Communications Operating Room business due to the timing of infrastructure installations.

Medical had U.S. organic sales growth of 6.5%, that included a double-digit performance in the Acute Care business, which was driven by ProCuity, and Vocera. We continue to expect Medical to achieve 10% organic sales growth this year while we manage the previously discussed supply chain disruptions affecting our Emergency Care business. Vascular had U.S. organic sales growth of 13.4%, led by the recent launches of our Surpass Elite Flow Diverting Stent and Broadway Aspiration System. As a reminder, organic sales growth figures do not include Inari. And finally, Neurocranial had U.S. organic sales growth of 12.9%, led by strong double-digit growth in our IVS, Cranial Maxillofacial, and Neurosurgical businesses.

Internationally, MedSurg and Neurotechnologies’ organic sales growth was 5.1%, despite the ongoing supply disruptions affecting our medical business, and against a very strong prior year comparable growth rate of over 11%, which was driven by our Medical, Endoscopy, and Neurocranial businesses. The growth this quarter was led by our Neurocranial and Instrument businesses. Geographically, this included healthy performances in South Korea and Japan.

Orthopedics had organic sales growth of 11.4%, which included organic growth of 12.9% in the U.S. and 7.8% internationally. Our U.S. Knee business grew 8.4% organically, reflecting our market-leading position in robotic-assisted knee procedures and continued momentum from new Mako installations. Our U.S. Hip business grew 8.7% organically, highlighted by the ongoing success of our Insignia Hip Stem and the continued adoption of our Mako Robotic Hip platform that now has the expanded ability to address more difficult primary hip cases as well as hip revisions.

Our U.S. Trauma and Extremities business grew 13.2% organically, with robust double-digit sales growth in our Upper extremities and Core Trauma businesses. Our multi-year strong shoulder growth continues while our core trauma performance continues to be driven by Pangea, our differentiated plating portfolio. Our U.S. other ortho business grew 38.5% organically, driven by robust installations in the quarter and amplified by make-or-deal mix and a strong performance in navigational technology products. Internationally, Orthopedics’ organic growth of 7.8% included a strong performance from our emerging markets. Our international results also include a nominal amount of spinal implant revenue because of previously accepted tenders that we are fulfilling before exiting those markets.

Now I will focus on certain operating and non-operating highlights in the third quarter. Our adjusted gross margin of 65% was favorable by 50 basis points over the third quarter of 2024, despite tariff headwinds, which we now estimate will have a net impact of approximately $200 million for the full year 2025. The adjusted gross margin improvement was primarily driven by business mix and cost improvements as we continue to optimize our supply chain and manufacturing processes.

Our adjusted operating margin was 25.6% of sales, which was 90 basis points favorable to the third quarter of 2024. Driven by the gross margin favorability I just discussed, as well as lower adjusted SG&A as a percentage of sales due to ongoing spend discipline as part of our long-term focus on continued margin expansion. Adjusted other income and expense of $116 million for the quarter was $74 million higher than 2024 due to increased interest expense from the most recent debt issuances and lower interest income. We now expect our full year 2025 adjusted other income and expense to be approximately $415 million. The third quarter had an adjusted effective tax rate of 14%, reflecting the impact of geographic mix and certain discrete tax items. For 2025, we now expect our full-year effective tax rate to be at the lower end of our previously guided range of 15% to 16%.

Turning to cashflow, our year to date cash from operations was $2.9 billion, driven by year-over-year working capital improvements. And now I will update our full year 2025 guidance. Considering our year-to-date results, continued strong demand for our products, and our operational momentum, we are raising our full year guidance and now expect organic net sales growth of 9.8% to 10.2% and adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $13.50 to $13.60. Our updated sales guidance includes a modestly favorable pricing impact. In addition, foreign exchange is expected to have a slightly positive impact on both sales and earnings per share should rates hold near current levels.

With that, I will now open the call for Q&A.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

At this time, we will open the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions]. Okay. Our first question will come from Robbie Marcus with JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Robert Marcus

Oh, great. Thanks a lot for taking the questions and congrats on a nice quarter. Two for me. First, Kevin, you always have great insight into procedure volumes and the equipment market. You clearly had a great quarter. On the ortho side, some bright spots on the capex side, also a little bit of softness, particularly in Medical. Was hoping you could just walk us through what you’re seeing globally in terms of procedure volume, market, and the health of it, as well as some of the puts and takes on the capital equipment side globally?

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. I would tell you that nothing’s really changed. If you think about what we’ve said the past couple of quarters, procedure volumes are very healthy, which affects obviously our implants as well as our small capital. And the capital markets are really strong. The balance sheets are strong with hospitals. You saw this quarter, in fact, a lot of Mako purchases, which helped. Obviously, we had strong installations, but a lot of those were cash purchases. And a year ago, those were being more leased. So balance sheets are strong. Procedure growth is strong. As it relates to our business mix, sometimes you see in the communications area, there was a bit of timing. A lot of these installations of ORs are going to be delayed a little bit, but we have a very healthy order book in communications.

Medical, as you described, sometimes goes up and down. We had a big quarter last year in the third quarter. We’re going to have a very strong fourth quarter, off to a fast start in October, and it’ll be a very strong fourth quarter. And as you’ve seen in the past, Medical does kind of move from quarter to quarter. There can be variability. But over the full year, very strong and healthy business. Obviously, we’ve had some supply chain disruptions in Emergency Care. That’s continued all year. But in spite of that, still going to be a double-digit growth year. Would have been even higher if not for the supply chain challenges. But I would say across the board, the markets that we play in are very healthy.

Robert Marcus

Great. Maybe one for Preston. Your business every year has a big step up, third quarter to fourth quarter, both on sales and margins. Obviously, we can back into what’s implied in guidance, but just help us walk through some of the things to consider, particularly on the margin side and the levers that you pull to get to the step up there. Appreciate it. Thanks, all.

Preston Wells

Yeah, absolutely, Rob. I appreciate it. So I think the thing to keep in mind as you think about the guidance range, particularly as we talk about margins, obviously we do have a larger sales number that we’ll be building on. We’re going to continue with our focus around margin improvement that’s driving the upside on our gross margins as well as in the SG&A lines. The big offset this year is tariffs. So we look at the tariff impact.

It’s more second half weighted. And so that is going to certainly be the offsetting piece of what we would normally see as much bigger margin expansion in the fourth quarter. So we’re still expecting operationally to drive better margins, but then that’ll be partially offset by tariffs in the fourth quarter to get to where we’ve guided to.

Operator

All right. Our next question is from Larry Biegelsen with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Lawrence Biegelsen

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on another nice quarter here. So Kevin, you’re guiding to 10% organic growth at the midpoint in 2025. How are you thinking about maintaining this momentum next year? What are some of the puts and takes we should consider? And can you expand margins next year with the tariff impact increasing on a year-over-year basis? And I had one follow-up.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, sure, Larry. We have an Investor Day coming up pretty soon, and we’ll share kind of our longer-term outlook at that time. What I would tell you is this is our fourth consecutive year of growing roughly 10% organically. Of course, last year was a little bit higher than that, over 11%. But this is a sustainable, durable, high-growth business. You’re going to see more of the same for years to come.

Lawrence Biegelsen

That’s helpful. And Kevin, I’m sure everybody listening, you know, picked up on your M&A comments. So maybe just refresh us on areas of interest, if anything has changed, deal size, etc., anything new? Thanks for taking the question.

Kevin Lobo

No change, Larry. All of our businesses are lining up their targets that would help enhance their businesses. And as you know, there are adjacencies that we’re going to continue to explore. I’ve been pretty clear about what those are. As you know, peripheral was one of those adjacencies that we pulled the trigger on in the first quarter of this year. And so there’s no new ones, the same ones I’ve been talking about. We do have a strong balance sheet.

We can do larger deals if they’re going to be value-creating for the company. It’s always hard to predict the exact timing on deals. And so we do plan to be active. It is the number one use of capital. That is our first priority is to use it for acquisitions, and so we remain on the hunt.

Operator

Our next question is from Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Ryan Zimmerman

Good afternoon. And let me echo the congratulations on the quarter. You know, Kevin and Jason, your Knee number in the U.S. stands out pretty in stark contrast to your other competitor that it’s announced the spin out of its orthopedic business. And I’m just wondering, kind of, Kevin, how you think about the health of the orthopedics market, how you’re preparing to maybe capitalize on any disruption that may come of that.

And just kind of your outlook on orthopedics. One thing I did notice was price pressure. We did see a little bit of price pressure in this quarter. We haven’t seen that for a few quarters, so maybe comment on maybe what was driving that as well. Thanks for taking that question.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, sure. I’ll take the first part, and I’ll let Preston comment on the price pressure. Listen, we’re in a great position with our Knee business. It’s not new. This has been building over a number of years with our lead in cementless, the tremendous adoption of Mako for knees. We also have the new hinge, which is the revision system for knees. So this momentum has just been building. And with every Mako that gets installed, we know there’s going to be a high adoption of our products. And so we’ve been growing above the market for quite some time. It was a terrific quarter, especially if you consider last year, we had a very big Q3.

And so the Knee business is performing extremely well. We’re very excited about that additional changes that are coming, more software changes for Mako to make it even better to use. Actually, some new product innovations that we’ll talk about on the investor call in a couple of weeks. And so the Knee business is really poised to continue this high growth. And then on price, Preston?

Preston Wells

Yeah, as far as pricing is concerned, we think about where we are. We’re pleased with the fact that we’ve been able to drive positive price for the overall organization over the last several quarters, and that’s really come out of the work that happened a few years ago. And so we’re still driving that. The other thing to consider is now we’re anniversarying some of that price improvement year over year over year. So now we’re driving compounded price that we’re seeing. And so we think about the split between the multiple business on the MedSurg side, we’re certainly seeing continued price improvement on that business. And with Orthopedics, we’re not back to where we were historically.

So we’re still performing above historic levels on a pricing standpoint. And we expect that we’re going to continue to try to work through the pricing muscle that we’ve learned to develop, that we have developed to continue to drive positive prices in the future.

Ryan Zimmerman

Okay. And then second one for me, thank you for both those answers. Appreciate that. On Inari, Kevin, as you like to say, the U.S. business is humming, but maybe if I could ask about the OUS side and when you think you can kind of really take Inari

To a bigger international presence, maybe than prior, when it was a standalone company? Thanks for taking the question.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, thanks. Look, our focus really has been on the U.S. I mean, we’ve really been all hands on deck. We went through some real challenges in the second quarter, enforcing people’s non-competes, going through a lot of churn in the sales force, bringing on new Stryker leaders. That’s been — we’ve been laser focused, and I love the recovery and the bounce back in Q3 was really terrific. And the outlook for Q4 is very good. We launched the first arterial product.

That’s getting really favorable feedback. We have started to expand internationally, but I don’t really — it hasn’t really taken off yet. That’ll start to, I really think, have a big impact in the second half of next year. It’s going to take a bit of time, but we do have infrastructure at Stryker that Inari did not have. And that clearly is one of the theses for us in doing the deal. And that international will be very exciting, but I really think it’ll start to take hold in the second half of next year.

Operator

The next question comes from Travis Steed with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Travis Steed

Hey, everybody. Thanks for the questions. I will start with a follow-up on Inari. Just curious if maybe you can elaborate on some of the integration process in the sales force. And like in this quarter, you think kind of a low point in the growth, and so we should kind of be sustaining this kind of double-digit growth going forward, and any comment on some of the store and PE data that came out. Curious if you had any comments on that.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, look, we put our own Stryker sales leader in charge of the sales force, and we’ve been hiring pretty rapidly, given the churn that we went through in the second quarter. It takes time for those sales reps to be fully productive. They had a really good Q3. I’m pleased with that. I’m not sure that I’d call this a low point. We do expect double-digit growth in Q4 and then again in Q1. However, we are still burning through some of that stocking that had occurred. The stocking will be completed.

The burn-through will be completed by the end of the first quarter. So we still have some more of that in Q4 as well as Q1, and then that’ll be something we don’t talk about anymore after that. But we are excited about getting sort of the teens level of growth and procedures. That translated to double-digit growth. We do expect a strong Q4 as well as Q1 next year, and then it’ll really start to take off after that without having that drag of the stocking.

Travis Steed

That’s helpful. And maybe a question on the Siemens partnership that happened over the quarter in Neurovascular. And if there’s any more you could kind of say on kind of the goals and timing and kind of what you’re trying to do with Siemens and Neurovascular Robotics?

Jason Beach

Hey, Travis, it’s Jason. I would say when appropriate, we’ll certainly disclose more, but at this point, really nothing else to add as far as that.

Operator

All right. The next question comes from Matthew O’Brien with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant

Thank you. This is Samantha on for Matt today. Thanks for taking our question. We’d like to start off with asking about the ortho other category that had really nice performance this quarter. Could you just talk a little bit about what all is driving the strength there and how durable do you see that growth?

Jason Beach

Yeah, this is Jason. I’ll take this one. I would say a couple of different things, and it goes back to some of the prepared remarks. I mean, if you just look at, again, another quarter of record installation of Mako, that certainly fuels that category. And then there is a bit of, I’ll call it, business mix, and I think Kevin touched on this, where outright purchases will drive revenue in that. So really, really strong strength. Is it going to grow at that level every quarter? I would say no, but certainly pleased with the performance in the quarter.

Unidentified Participant

Great. Thank you for that. And then also, just could you provide a little bit more commentary on the supply chain disruption in the Medical business? It was a little bit weaker than we were expecting. And just apply a steep rebound in Q4. So if there’s any more commentary you could provide, that would be great.

Jason Beach

Sure, it’s Jason again. So I would say, look, even if you go back to last quarter, we said some of these supply issues would kind of linger throughout the year. Certainly not going to quantify, but as you think about Medical performance in the fourth quarter, in order to get to this 10% growth on the year that we’re talking about, you can imagine there’s going to be an acceleration in the fourth quarter.

October was off to a good start. And so we certainly expect that we’ll have positive performances as we go throughout the quarter.

Operator

Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant

Hi, this is Nick on for Vijay. Would you break down the drivers of that 10% sales growth for Medical for the year? What’s driving that?

Jason Beach

Yeah, I mean, when you think about Medical — this is Jason, we don’t really get into product level drivers or even business unit level drivers, but when you think about products like LP35 and just launching in Europe, I mean, you’ll see an acceleration — start to see an acceleration there. But we would say across the lines of business in Medical, very, very good performance.

If you look at Vocera as an example, that accelerated in the third quarter. That’ll continue to accelerate in the fourth quarter. So it’s a big, diverse business, frankly, that we expect to perform well in the fourth quarter.

Kevin Lobo

And frankly, it’s been a business that’s performed double-digit for years. Year after year after year, it tends to perform double-digit growth. They have a very strong order book as well. And in spite of these supply chain challenges, still on track to deliver double digits.

Unidentified Participant

Got you. Thank you.

Operator

All right. Our next question comes from Matt Miksic with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Matthew Miksic

Hey, thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to just get a sense of the competitive dynamics in the ASC. It’s been a place where you’ve been leading. It’s been a place where you’ve had great success in Knees, opportunities for bringing other businesses in there, and leveraging your position across some of the other business lines. Any kind of color would be great. Thank you.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Listen, we love the ASC and the trend and procedures moving to the ASC because we can leverage our full portfolio and our growth continues to be very high in the ASC. The additional products are really that are starting to emerge at a higher level are total shoulder, where we’re the market leader, and you’re seeing more shoulders being done in the ASC, even some total ankles that are potentially moving to the ASC.

So some of the higher acuity cases, I wouldn’t say revisions, but certainly many other procedures are starting to move to the ASC, where we have a very strong position. So the more that procedures move to the ASC in the orthopedic world, the better it is for Stryker because we can then leverage an even broader portfolio than we’re already leveraging, including our capital, our disposables, and our implants.

Operator

Okay. Our next question comes from David Roman with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Jenny Rabinowitz

Hey, guys. This is Jenny Rabinowitz on for David. Thanks for taking the question. Just a quick one from me. You mentioned briefly the beginning of the call that you did two smaller product acquisitions in the quarter. I was just curious, can you go into any detail about what those products actually are or the markets they participate in? And are these smaller product acquisitions something we should expect going forward?

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, small tuck-in acquisitions are clearly a part of our offense. The NPCL product is a negative pressure wound treatment that does not require capital equipment. So today, the other options on the market have a pump that’s required. This is a really elegant solution, easy to use for the customer, and a lower-cost solution that drops right into the sales bag of our orthopedic instrument sales reps. They’re already there in the procedure, so it’s a beautiful tuck-in.

The other product, the balloon, is for fecal incontinence, and that’s part of the SAGE business, which works in the intensive care units of hospitals, and a very good product solution for a really troubling condition that patients have to go through, provides them with dignity and provides really good care. So we’re really excited about that solution, and that’s new for us. We have not been in the fecal incontinence space thus far.

Jenny Rabinowitz

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Philip Chickering with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Philip Chickering

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. One more question on ortho. There’s been an investor debate around the pull forward of demand of some of the collective procedures due to the uncertainties around health care exchanges. Just curious if you view 3Q as just the core growth you’re seeing due to market share or pull forward of demand?

Kevin Lobo

We see it as poor growth of the market. As we enter fourth quarter, we’re seeing a continued strong demand. So we don’t really foresee any pull forward. And obviously osteoarthritis, when you have the pain, you want to get your procedures done. And so I think that’s the much bigger driver. And I think it’s more about the fact that we’re growing at a robust rate. If you look at our growth rate, obviously, other people, not everyone’s reported yet.

But we believe that we’re growing considerably faster than the market. But we’re seeing order, like if you look at the surgery schedules and talk to surgeons, they don’t really have any anxiety whatsoever about a fall off in procedures. We’re still not hearing that.

Philip Chickering

All right, perfect. And then I think you talked about an elevated backlog in capex. CapEx is pretty good. Can you share the feedback you’re hearing with hospitals as they’re talking about the uncertainties around things like health care exchanges next year and the use of capex depending upon what will happen? Thanks so much.

Jason Beach

Yeah, it’s Jason, I’ll take this. I mean, you know, when you think about feedback from a hospital perspective, and you think about the categories that we play, we play in categories that are moneymakers for the hospitals, and they need our capital equipment, right? And so I would say, I think even Kevin said this earlier, environment for us really hasn’t changed. If you think about the mix of our capital, where the majority of our capital is this smaller capital that is closely tied to procedures.

We continue to believe, and the feedback that we continue to get is that as long as procedures remain strong, we’re positioned well in the fourth quarter and well into 2026 as well.

Kevin Lobo

And if you look at this quarter in particular, even the large capital, MAKO was very strong with a lot of outright purchases. And then you look at ProCuity, it was extremely strong, which beds are obviously large capital, and expensive, and the orders are very strong.

So those orders are very rarely canceled. And so our hospitals have the budgets, they have the plans, they are planning to go ahead and purchase our capital in spite of what’s happening around them.

Operator

Next question comes from Joanne Wuensch with Citibank. Your line is now open.

Joanne Wuensch

Thank you. Can you hear me okay?

Kevin Lobo

Yes, we can.

Joanne Wuensch

Excellent. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking the question. I remember two — maybe two years ago, that we were talking about sprinting back to pre-pandemic levels and margins and 200 basis points of expansion, and you’ve hit it. The 25.6 you just did in the third quarter went to 20.20 in 2021. Where do you go from here, and how do we think about continued margin expansion? And I’m sorry if I’m sort of stealing some of the thunder from the Analyst Day.

Kevin Lobo

Well, we’re going to just defer this question to the Analyst Day, Joanne. So I apologize. We’re going to duck the question because that for sure is going to be one of the topics that we discuss in a couple of weeks.

Joanne Wuensch

Okay. Can I get a second question then?

Kevin Lobo

Sure, you can. Yes. Because we didn’t answer your first one, so go ahead.

Joanne Wuensch

Thank you so much. I guess I’m going to go to Trauma and get a feel from you of what you’re seeing in that particular industry or that particular segment of your business? Thank you.

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, you’ve seen that for quite some time, our Trauma and Extremities business is absolutely on fire. We have great leadership in that business. We have the shoulder business had a phenomenal quarter again in Q3. Really tremendous market-leading growth. And this is really without much of impact at all for MAKO. So we are still in a limited launch with MAKO Shoulder. It’s being very well received. We’re not going to move until full launch until sometime in the first half of next year.

So that’s still a ways out, but we’re very excited about that. It’s just a core underlying portfolio of products with blueprint software, really good, strong leadership. And then Core Trauma has been amazing with Pangea. We’ve also launched VolarPlates for Distal Radius, just a series of great product innovations and a tremendous commercial offense as Core Trauma really growing at very robust rate. If you look at Foot and Ankle, it’s actually a bit soft for us.

So we see upside in Foot and Ankle going into next year. Our total Ankle performs well. Our augment performs well. But if you think about the core plates and nails, not quite as good as we would like that performance. We’re getting after it. We think that’ll be better going forward. But tremendous momentum overall and great business for us. And we’re very excited about.

Operator

Our next question is Michael Matson with Needham & Company, Inc. Your line is now open.

Michael Matson

Yeah, thanks. So I guess just a couple more on Inari. So, the PEERLESS II trial, just can you give us an update on where things stand with that and when we could potentially see the results? And then the Artix product, I think that’s been launched. Can you maybe comment on how that’s doing?

Kevin Lobo

Yeah, I’ll take the second question on Artix. It’s our first arterial thrombus product that Inari has launched. Everything else was Venus. It’s been extremely well received. It’s doing well in the marketplace, performing really as good or, if not better than, we expected in the market. So off to a very good start.

Jason Beach

Yeah, Mike, it’s Jason. In terms of the trial, it’ll be sometime next year before we start to see results. So you’ll hear us talk about that as we get into next year for sure.

Michael Matson

Okay, thanks. And then, just with the Guard Medical acquisition, looking at the website, it looks like it’s more for surgical incisions. But is this a sign that Stryker has interest in kind of the broader advanced wound care market?

Kevin Lobo

Yeah. Listen, I wouldn’t read too much into this. If you think about Zipline, that was a product for skin closure that we dropped right into the bag of the orthopedic instruments reps. This, of course, is wound treatment with negative pressure, but it drops right into the bag of that existing sales rep. Think about it more as a call point sale that drops right into the bag. versus the creation of some new business. That’s not how we’re thinking about it today.

That may change in the future, but for today, we’re not thinking about a broader wound strategy. It’s really more about optimizing the call point, dropping it into the bag, and really providing an elegant solution for the customers.

Operator

Next question is from Danielle Antalffy with UBS. Your line is now open.

Danielle Antalffy

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. Just a question, and I guess this goes to [Technical Issues] guidance here, but we’re seeing positive price in MedSurg. You mentioned new anniversaries and price upticks in Q3 in Orthopedics.

So, how do we think about go forward from here? You still have a pretty positive product cycle, but specifically in Ortho, do you think it’s more like flat going forward from here? Do you still have pricing power there too? Thanks so much.

Preston Wells

Hey, Danielle, thanks for the question. So from a pricing standpoint, yes. I mean, we do believe that based on our overall execution of our business from a contracting perspective with new products and innovation across our portfolio, we will have opportunities from a pricing standpoint as we go forward.

And that’ll be in all businesses. It won’t be exactly the same across the different business lines, but across all of our businesses, we do believe we have certain levels of pricing power that we will be able to continue as we go forward.

Danielle Antalffy

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Shagun Singh with RBC. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant

Hi, guys. This is Kendall on for Shagun, and thank you for taking my question. I just had one question on the upcoming Investor Day. I know last time you gave some targets on organic growth, operating margin, EPS growth, and free cash flow. conversion. I was wondering if those kind of targets will be laid out again, and if you could add any other color on that, and also if you had any update on the current tariff environment and any impact on 2026? Thank you so much.

Jason Beach

Yeah, this is Jason. I don’t want to spoil any surprises that you’ll hear in a couple weeks, but yeah, you’re absolutely right. We will update our long-term financial goals, including, I think Kevin mentioned earlier, kind of our current view on margins as well. So expect to see that for sure.

As it relates to the tariff environment, Preston, feel free to add on here, but I think Preston said in his script, we’re now forecasting roughly a $200 million impact for the year. As you know, this is a fluid environment that we continue to monitor, but that’s our latest outlook right now.

Operator

Okay. There are no further questions. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Lobo for any closing remarks.

Kevin Lobo

Thank you for joining today’s call. We look forward to sharing updates on our business and strategy with you at our Investor Day on November 13th and our Fourth Quarter Results with you in January. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks].