LeMaitre Vascular - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 delivered solid profitability with adjusted EPS $0.62 (+27% y/y) and adjusted gross margin 70.8% (+300 bps), while reported EPS of $0.75 benefited from a one-time Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) of $4.8mm; revenue was $61.0mm (+11% y/y; +12% organic).
• Versus S&P Global consensus, revenue modestly missed ($61.0mm vs $62.17mm*), but EPS beat on both reported ($0.75 vs $0.56*) and adjusted bases ($0.62 vs $0.56*); strength came from pricing, mix and manufacturing efficiencies.
• FY25 guidance raised on profitability: gross margin 71.4% (adj. 70.3%), operating income midpoint to $67.1mm (adj. $63.7mm) and EPS midpoint to $2.51 (adj. $2.37), while sales midpoint trimmed to $248mm (prior midpoint $251mm) amid FX and catheter recall timing dynamics; Q4 guide implies 29% op margin.
• Stock-relevant catalysts: accelerating Artegraft OUS launch (Q3 OUS $1.4mm; Q4 run-rate expected ~$2mm), German approval for RestoreFlow (allograft) enabling broader EU approvals, 2026 U.S. price list +8%, and disclosure that 55% of North America revenue now has price floors; near-term watch items include APAC softness, FX headwinds and FDA warning letter (no supply disruption).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Pricing power and cost discipline expanded adjusted GM to 70.8% (+300 bps y/y) and adjusted op margin to 28%; CEO: “We’ve been making some progress… pricing… Autograft… providing a positive impact to product mix”.
  • OUS Artegraft (Autograft) beat expectations: Q3 sales $1.4mm (Q2 $0.42mm) with Q4 expected ~$2mm; “doctors love it… finding customers faster than we thought”.
  • Cash generation and balance sheet optionality: cash and securities rose $23.6mm to $343.1mm; CFO highlighted $28.8mm CFO and continued dividend payments.

• What Went Wrong

  • Revenue guide trimmed: ~one-third from FX (~$0.6mm), plus catheter recall pull-forward from Q2 and APAC execution issues (management transitions in Korea/Japan); “bringing guidance down by about $1.8 million in the quarter”.
  • FDA warning letter (Aug 11) at NJ Autograft facility (QMS) adds regulatory overhang, though production/shipping/invoicing unaffected.
  • China cardiac patch launch underwhelmed; pivoting to peripheral vascular patch (XenoSure) with filing expected in Q4 and longer-dated approval timeline.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the operator. Today's conference is scheduled to begin momentarily. Until that time, your lines will again be placed on music hold. Thank you for your patience. Hello, good day. This is RJ, your conference operator today, and we welcome you to the LeMaitre Vascular Q3 2025 financial results conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Dorian LeBlanc, Chief Financial Officer of LeMaitre Vascular. Please go ahead, sir.

Dorian LeBlanc (CFO)

Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on our Q3 2025 conference call. With me on today's call is our CEO, George LeMaitre, and our President, Dave Roberts. Before we begin, I'll read our Safe Harbor Statement. Today, we'll be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which is subject to risks and uncertainties. Wherever possible, we will try to identify those forward-looking statements by using words such as believe, expect, anticipate, pursue, forecast, and similar expressions. Our forward-looking statements are based on our estimates and assumptions as of today, November 6th, 2025, and should not be relied upon as representing our estimates or views on any subsequent date.

Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information and the risk factors in our most recent 10-K and subsequent SEC filings, including disclosure of the factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For example, during the quarter we recorded a non-recurring benefit from the receipt of the employee retention tax credit. Non-GAAP adjusted financial measures discussed in our remarks exclude the benefit of the tax credit. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures discussed in this call is contained in the associated press release and will be available in the investor relations section of our website, www.lemait.com. I'll now turn the call over to George LeMaitre.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Thanks, Dorian. Q3 featured organic sales growth of 12% and a better-than-expected gross margin. Excluding the one-time tax benefit, we also posted several bottom-line records, operating income, EBITDA, EPS, and cash generation. Q3 sales were led by grafts, up 23%, and shunts up 18%. AMEA grew 18%, the Americas 10%, and APAC 4%. Price accounted for 10% of Q3 growth, with 2% from units. The April recall led to some customers front-loading catheter purchases into Q2, reducing Q3 organic and unit growth. Ex-catheters, Q3 organic growth was 14%. Our international Autograft launch continues to exceed expectations. Q2 sales were $420,000. Q3 sales were $1.4 million, and now we expect Q4 sales of $2 million. Autograft grew 33% worldwide in Q3. We expect 2026 Autograft approvals in Canada and Korea. We received German approval for RestorFlow in October and anticipate distribution beginning in Q2 2026 as we build German-specific inventory.

Inventory for other EU markets will likely not need to be country-specific and can be drawn from our worldwide stock. Irish approval is expected in H1 2026. German and Irish approvals should accelerate other EU approvals. To support the launches, we recently leased a European RFA distribution facility in Dublin. As we look to understand the size of the European market, it's notable that we distributed $2.7 million of tissues in the U.K. over the last 12 months. We ended Q3 with 152 reps after implementing a performance-based reduction of eight sales reps. We currently have 23 open rep hiring requisitions and expect to have 165 reps at year-end. On November 1st, we published our 2026 U.S. hospital price list, reflecting an 8% increase. This is consistent with recent years. As usual, there will be a gap between the price list and prices realized.

55% of our North American revenue is now subject to price floors. Our 2026 international price lists are still being finalized. To support our growth, in Q1, we're opening a 34,000 sq ft distribution center near our Burlington headquarters. This is our first meaningful Massachusetts real estate expansion since 2020. 2025 is shaping up to be another year of healthy sales and profit growth. We continue to make investments in our sales force, new international offices, and regulatory approvals. We're now guiding 40% op income growth in Q4 and a 29% op margin. I'll now turn the call over to Dorian.

Dorian LeBlanc (CFO)

Thanks, George. LeMaitre's organic growth rate was 12% in the third quarter. Year-over-year reported revenue growth of 11% was reduced by $1.3 million due to our CO distribution exit but benefited from the weaker U.S. dollar, which added $1 million to reported sales. As George detailed, excluding catheters, Q3 organic growth was 14%. In Q3 2025, we received $4.8 million from the employee retention tax credit. This non-recurring credit impacted several P&L line items. Reported cost of sales were reduced by $2.7 million. Reported operating expenses, net of fees, were reduced by $0.7 million, and reported interest income was increased by $0.7 million. We also recorded an additional $0.9 million in our provision for income taxes. As a result, reported gross margin was 75.3%. Reported operating expenses were $25.6 million. Reported operating income was $20.3 million. Reported operating margin was 33%.

Reported net income was $17.4 million, and reported diluted EPS was $0.75. We refer to our adjusted financial results during our call today to exclude this non-recurring benefit. In Q3 2025, we posted an adjusted gross margin of 70.8%. This 300 basis point year-over-year increase was driven primarily by higher pricing, manufacturing efficiencies, and product mix. Adjusted operating expenses in Q3 2025 were $26.3 million, an increase of 9% versus Q3 2024. This expense growth rate is down from a 20% increase quarter-on-quarter in Q2. Higher compensation expenses and European investments in Ireland, Switzerland, Czechia, and Portugal drove H1 expenses. As we began to indicate in our Q2 earnings call, we now anticipate adjusted operating expenses decreasing by $4.5 million from H1-H2. Q3 2025 adjusted operating income was $16.9 million, up 29%, resulting in an adjusted operating margin of 28%.

Fueled by our gross margin improvements and operating expense control, 2025 is a year of operating leverage. Op margin has increased over the first three quarters, 21%, 25%, 28%, and now we are guiding 29% in Q4. For reference, headcount was 633 at 09/30/2025 versus 637 at 09/30/2024. Adjusted net income increased 27% year-over-year to $14.2 million in Q3, and adjusted fully diluted earnings per share was $0.62, up 27%. We ended the quarter with $343.1 million in cash and securities, an increase of $23.6 million. We generated $28.8 million in cash from operations, and we paid $4.5 million in dividends to shareholders. On August 11th, our New Jersey Autograft facility received an FDA warning letter related to our quality management system. We have provided written responses to the agency's letter, and this has not disrupted our ability to produce, ship, or invoice products.

We've raised our full-year operating income and EPS guidance as our continued focus on profitable growth sets us up for a strong finish to 2025. Our full-year revenue guidance is $248 million, 13% growth. We anticipate a full-year adjusted gross margin of 70.3% and adjusted operating income of $63.7 million, up 22%. This results in a 26% adjusted operating margin for the year. Our guidance on adjusted fully diluted earnings per share of $2.37 is an increase of 22% over 2024. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Michael Sarkon of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Michael Sarkon (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the question. I guess, just to start. Mostly good guidance changes, but on the revenue side, it looks like you're now expecting lower organic growth. Could you maybe kind of walk us through the moving pieces there and what's changed?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Sure, Mike. Thanks a lot. This is George. Obviously, it's a topic here. Maybe we break it down into Q3 topics and the Q4 topics because obviously the guidance decreased here. We're halfway into that, right? In Q3, we think that the catheter recall that we executed in Q2 wound up sort of front-loading sales a little bit more than we expected into Q2, and then it pulled it out in Q3, and we think it'll keep pulling it out in Q4. That's a topic in Q3. Export, which we don't talk that much about, didn't have such a great European or APAC quarter in Q3. In general, APAC, a little bit of struggles lately you're watching. It's only 7% of our sales, but we've had a tough couple of quarters here. At the root of it, maybe there's some management turmoil.

We've reloaded for a brand new Korea RSM and a brand new Japanese RSM, or excuse me, general manager in Japan. There's been a little bit of that. We don't know if it's exactly the issue, but that's certainly on our plate. I would say that's your Q3 topic. In Q4, I would sort of just repeat what I said about the catheter recall, and I'd repeat what I said about APAC in general. A third of the whole thing, because we're bringing guidance down by about $1.8 million in the quarter, about a third of it is FX. At the last call on August 6, the Euro was at $1.17. Now the Euro is at $1.15. That strengthening of the dollar, am I doing this right? No, yeah.

That change has taken away about $600,000 of sales out of our Q4 guidance. That has nothing to do with us, right? It is still going to look like the guidance was pulled down, so that is what that is. I hope that is it. We obviously expected that question. I hope that is a pretty full answer.

Michael Sarkon (Analyst)

Very much so. Thank you. I guess just for my second. Gross margins really strong. You talked about 10% price and manufacturing efficiencies as well. I guess when we look forward to 2026, what are the moving pieces that we should think about in terms of how gross margin could change over the course of the year?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yep. Mike, thanks. I don't think we're ready to start guiding on 2026 yet, but I think you can look at the cadence of gross margin over the last three quarters, 69.2% in Q1, 70% in Q2, 70.8% adjusted here in Q3, and our guidance of 71.2%. You can see that we've been making some progress. The pricing, obviously, is a nice flow through. Getting CO out, which, as you remember, had the distribution-only margin, helps us from the mix perspective. You'll hear us talk a lot about Autograft, I think, again, this quarter, really providing a positive impact to product mix as well. We continue to benefit from some of the manufacturing efficiencies. Standard cost basis, it takes sometimes a little while to flow through. I think the ramp during the year is a good sign for us.

Michael Sarkon (Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Again, as a reminder, if you need to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Suraj Kalia of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is Seamus on for Suraj. Thank you for taking our questions. To start, I guess one of the things is you guys have been really good at establishing and getting price increases. I noticed you noted that you put an 8% price floor, so to speak, for 2026 in the U.S. hospital list. Just curious, how do you kind of arrive at that 8% versus, say, 7% or 9%, and kind of what are the puts and takes that go into that?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Sure. That's a great question, Seamus. Thanks a lot, George. I think in the U.S. and obviously internationally, when those come along, we don't know those yet. We're always sort of probing in our mind about which categories can take it and which categories can't. I would say one of the reasons why we try to build a niche-type business is because in some of these niches, you can achieve price hikes. You're pushing harder on those niche categories. In some of the commodity categories, the Dacron, the PTFE, maybe to a certain extent the catheters, where you're lower margins and you're more in combat with other similar devices, we're pressing it a lot less.

That 8% number we are reading to you guys right now is trying to give you a blended number across everything, with sort of some of them 10s and some of them 4s and some of them nothings, things like that.

Got it. Appreciate that. Just kind of two smaller ones on mine, and I'll package them together. Would you be able to break out, I guess, your kind of price versus volume contributions in some various categories we've kind of seen this year? Also, how much has direct sales OUS, as you guys have contributed this year? Thank you again for taking our questions.

Okay. Great. I think I'm going to understand your question, but the back half, I think, is a lot easier. Is your question, what % of sales are direct to hospital? If that's the question, I would say 95% is a very clean number that's known by all of us a lot. Is that what you wanted to get at with the second question?

No, just looking at, I know you guys have converted and gone direct in Portugal, Czechia. Just curious how much that has contributed this year versus that you're going direct.

I would say so far, specifically on Portugal and Czechia, it's not meaningful at all. They're very small right now so far. It wasn't a topic that came up in sales at all for the quarter. Your other question was about units and price. Of course, it's a pretty serious topic for us. In the quarter, it was. On a reported basis, if you will, it was 10 and 2, 10% price and 2% units. The way we look at it is without the catheter recall, we're sort of normalizing it. So XDAT recall, it was 11% price and 3% unit. If you want to draw out from that and not look exactly at Q3 and look at the nine months of 2025, it was 4.3% units, and the balance was price. Last year, in 2024, it was 4% units, the balance was price.

The year before that, 2023, which was sort of the big year here, it was 5% units. You can sort of feel like it is a 5 or a 4 or a 4.5 these days.

Got it. Appreciate that. Sorry to push it a little on that. I guess, as well, can you give us a flavor of where the respective kind of categories are on that price versus volume kind of curve? Grafts has been more price versus volume, shunts, so on and so forth. Thank you.

Okay. I'll give it a shot. We don't exactly look at it like that all the time, but I would say it feels like with valvulotomes and shunts, you're feeling it's more of a price topic. And with patches and grafts, it feels more like a unit topic.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot. That's a good question, Seamus.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Rick Wise of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Annie on for Rick. Thanks for taking our questions. The first one from me, appreciating that you're not providing any specific 2026 guidance today. Can you highlight any key product lines or geographies that you're particularly excited about now and sort of as we head into next year? I know you've mentioned Autograft and Allografts as having notable strength this year. Curious if these will continue to be key growth drivers moving forward.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Right. Annie, George, again, yes, I would call those two out. I would then toss into the mix XenoSure, which is part of our patch category, specifically the peripheral vascular segment. All of XenoSure has been going really well. We have a lot of momentum in it. I would say those three devices. Maybe one of the themes we can draw on is that the biologics at the company are going extremely well right now. We have a lot of momentum in them. I definitely do not expect it to change as we go into 2026. If anything, probably some of these European approvals that you are hearing about for Autograft, as well as for RFA, and our projection that we are going to get some approvals would lead you to believe that the focus of the growth is probably more about biologics than about synthetics or about.

Transient use single-use devices.

Got it. Thank you. And then just one more. You ended the quarter with, what was that, $343 million of cash on hand. And we've seen that balance continue to grow over time. So I'm hoping you can share any updated thinking about your capital deployment strategy. Are you thinking more aggressively about M&A or just any color here would be very much appreciated.

Dave Roberts (President)

Hi, Annie. It's Dave. Yeah, it's certainly a nice cash balance. That's a gross cash balance on a net because we have to convert on a net basis. It's $170. In terms of thinking more aggressively, I would say we do like the optionality that the higher cash balance provides us. On the other hand, I don't necessarily, I don't think the team necessarily feels like, "Oh gosh, we better get something done quickly and reduce our own standards for acquisitions." I would say, as I mentioned on the call in August, we've been pretty busy in terms of BizDev acquisition-related activity this year with term sheets, etc. We're out there hunting, but I don't necessarily feel like having more cash, it's a nice problem to have, if you will, a high-class problem.

I don't think we're relaxing our standards for the types of acquisitions that we'll be doing.

Got it. Thanks, Dave.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Treybeck of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Nathan Treybeck (VP and Equity Analyst)

Hi. Good evening. My first question, I think in your opening remarks, you disclosed a new metric that 55% of your North America customers are now subject to price floors. Can you help us understand what you're trying to convey by disclosing this and maybe just talk about your plans to roll out price floors to the rest of your customers?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Okay. That's a great question there, Nathan. It's George again. Yeah. Just to reiterate, 55% of our North American revenue is now subject to price floors. I think we get this question so much about what are these price floors, how much of the revenue is sort of niche-y enough that you can put a price floor on it. We keep having people keep wanting us to put numbers on it. We figured we'd just drag it up front and get it out instead of it coming out as a question. How much can be price floored? We don't know exactly. I would say it hasn't gone up that much in the Americas in the last one or two years. You might be reaching a place there where the price floors are in on those 55.

The balance, as I mentioned before, answering another question, maybe some of the other commodity-type stuff, it would not be wise to put a price floor on it because they would run over to the other guys and buy from the other guys. I just think we are trying to—we have gotten a lot of questions about pricing around here. We always hear it. Dorian and Dave, who do most of the IR work out in the field, are always getting these questions, and it will be good just to settle it with that. That is the genesis of why we put it there.

Nathan Treybeck (VP and Equity Analyst)

Great. George, on the last earnings call, you made a comment that you see R&D as a percent of sales increasing back to 8%-10% over time. Can you talk about how you intend to manage this increased spend against your EPS growth targets? How should we think about 2026 R&D spend? Thanks.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Right. As we were prepping for today's call, we were nervous we were going to get a buy-in. Hey, your op margin's too high. There is part of that here, which is the R&D spend's not as high as maybe you want to see right now. What is the percentage? 6% or something with 5%? One of the things we're seeing, it's very temporal. Part of our life here is that we just finished all these MDRs, and internally, we call it the peace dividend. I guess it's a remark about back in George Bush's day or whatever. We're trying to convey, we just got over this big bolus of expenses, and now it's coming down. In R&D around these regulatory approvals for MDR. Almost certainly, somehow, some way, that's going to build up with looking for different regulatory approvals elsewhere, doing factory transitions.

We still have two factories out there, as you know, New Jersey and Chicago. And then also plain old-fashioned R&D at some point. There are lots of ways to deploy the money. It seems unrealistic that we would be down at 5% or 6%. I think we have room to put it back in, given the 28%-29% op margins that we're talking about.

Nathan Treybeck (VP and Equity Analyst)

Okay. If I could just squeeze one more in. You got RestoreFlow approval in Germany. I think in the past, you talked about the overall European market being $80 million-$100 million. Germany is probably the largest economy there. How are you thinking about this rollout into next year? Is this a big upside lever for where you see street numbers are right now for 2026?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Right. I have not looked at street numbers for 2026, so I am not trying to comment on where they are at or how this helps or does not help. I am just looking at my business, and I would say the Germany approval is great, and it is the most important economy and the most important medical device market in continental Europe. I think that is very obvious. There is a little hairball on it for us in that the German authorities want to see the recovery centers where we get these tissues from. All other European countries, we believe, do not really care where we get them from, just like the FDA, sorry, the American Tissue Bank Authority does not exactly want to go audit our recovery centers. With the German thing, it is big, it is huge. We need it to get other approvals.

In the very short term, and why we're calling this thing out in the script here, is that you have to build German-specific inventory in allografts, and it can only come for now from those two recovery centers. We'll have another two recovery centers approved, let's say by Q3 of next year. It's a little bit Germany, we'll see where it goes. It's a little bit hobbled by those recovery center items. When we get Ireland, and then when Germany and Ireland lead to other countries, we don't think there'll be that kind of constraint, and we can draw the inventory off our worldwide bucket.

The reason we put in the, and I think this is a market-sized question at its root also, the reason why we threw in this little stat about the U.K. is we did get our approval in the U.K. in 2022, and we've had three years to sort of work the kinks out over there. Last year, or the last 12 months, rather, we sold $2.7 million of tissues. We transferred or distributed, is what you're allowed to say, $2.7 million of tissues in the U.K. It gives you a sense of where we got to after three years. It's a great tidbit. With that, Dave, do you happen to know the Canadian number for allograft? I don't have that at my fingertips right now.

Dave Roberts (President)

The Canadian revenue number?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah, because it might be another tidbit here to help people sort of triangulate where Germany would end up.

Dave Roberts (President)

Yeah. I don't have it specifically, but I would say qualitatively, we've seen pretty significant uptake of our allografts in Canada. I would say particularly on the cardiac surgery side. I think some significant percentage of LeMaitre revenue in Canada is now cardiac surgery because of allografts. Some of that has to do with the fact that the other market participants aren't in Canada, or they have a distributor. Of course, having an allograft at your disposal at the ready in inventory is very important. We feel like that advantage will carry over to LeMaitre allograft supply chain in Europe. I don't have the exact figure on these.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Nathan, did we get at the essence of your question, or do you want to re-ask parts of it, or how do you feel about our answers?

Nathan Treybeck (VP and Equity Analyst)

No, I think. Is there any way to kind of compare the size of the market in the U.K. versus the German market?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Sure. I can try it. We always assume the German market's bigger than the U.K. I'm going to say I feel like in most medical devices, it's kind of like 50% bigger than the U.K., 75% bigger than the U.K.

Nathan Treybeck (VP and Equity Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Petusky of Barrington Research. Please go ahead.

Michael Petusky (Managing Director and Senior Investment Analyst)

Hey, good evening, guys. George, I didn't catch completely what you said around the Salesforce. Did you give the number of reps currently?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah. 152 at the end of the quarter with 23 open requisitions, still trying to land at 165 at the end of the year.

Michael Petusky (Managing Director and Senior Investment Analyst)

Okay. I do think I caught that you let maybe eight guys go as well. I'm just curious. It seems like a lot, and it seems like a lot of open slots. Is there anything to add there or just the normal course of business?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

I agree that 23 is a bit on the larger side, but of course, when you let go of eight folks, it meant we were sort of trying to get 15 more growth territories than we had. As you guys have watched us grow the Salesforce pretty aggressively over the last couple of years, and I think as we've done that and as we've installed, you've heard this story a lot too, as we've installed a lot more regional managers, we've gotten a chance to even take closer looks at the actual reps, even though there's more of them. A, there's more problems at the end of the bell curve, if you will. And then B, we have more inspectors, i.e., we now have 12 RSMs in the US and four area sales managers above them.

I would say going back two years ago in the U.S., you had a VP of Sales and eight RSMs trying to man the whole ship. Now we have a lot more management, and they're able to figure out who's not pulling their weight more quickly. We're always doing that. We're always trying to find how can we do better in a certain region and territory. That's where the layoff there of the eight went to. You got to keep growing. I think we've been on this 165 number for at least one phone call, if not two phone calls here now.

Michael Petusky (Managing Director and Senior Investment Analyst)

Okay. All right. Very good. I didn't catch if you gave an update. Anything to talk about in China, I guess, particularly vascular patch or XenoSure vascular patch or any other interesting items in China?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Right. Right. I would say the big update from China is things continue to go well. Sales growth of 40% in Q3, since you're asking about China specifically. The negative update is we're really, really struggling to sell the cardiac patches that we got approved last December. That does not feel like a great launch. I think you guys are watching this Autograft launch in Europe, and it's going great guns. We all know that. We've talked about it a lot. I would say this is the opposite of that. To transition to the peripheral vascular, XenoSure over in, or this peripheral vascular patch, bovine patch over in China, we expect to make our "final filing" for the approval in Q4, so within two months. We're sort of thinking another two years till that approval.

We believe there are fewer competitors in the peripheral segment than the cardiac segment for patches in China. We will see. We had been really excited about that Chinese cardiac patch, and that is not working out too well for us.

Michael Petusky (Managing Director and Senior Investment Analyst)

Again, forgive me, this is the fifth call I've done today. I may have missed this, but did you say that MDR is completed at this point, or is it just substantially completed?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

It's all over except the shouting. We still have one more to get, and it's a minor product line. So we're 21 of 22.

Michael Petusky (Managing Director and Senior Investment Analyst)

Okay. Great job on that and the quarter. Thanks.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Thanks a lot, Mike.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Brett Fishbin of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brett Fishbin (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Hey, guys. How's it going? Just had a couple of questions. I think you mentioned a target of 165 sales reps exiting 2025. You just responded to the question about the number of open positions. Was really just curious maybe how you're thinking about that 165 number. Looking ahead, it seems like a lot of hiring activity has taken place over the past couple of years. Really just interested where you think that number needs to go over the maybe medium-term 2026. Maybe even 2027, or if this is kind of the right place to be.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Okay. I mean, I think that has some to do with our op margin, which is if you see a plump op margin, this is a fantastic place to invest money. So I do feel like it's going to want to go up. I don't know how much. I guess we really haven't finalized what happens next year. We got a lot of reps to hire right now. But it's going to go up. The rule of thumb that we sort of. We're balancing the op margin, right? We want to pay as you go on these types of investments. We don't want to kill our op margin. But you have dozens of $2 million—you've heard me say this before on the call, so it's a little boring—but we have dozens of $2 million-plus territories in the U.S. alone.

Where you should be splitting them and setting up for growth over the next two or three years. It can get considerably larger. This is ex-China. If you really—we have four reps in China right now. We're hiring a fifth right now, which is barely scratching the surface over there. If you really want to go at China, and we do, you can have, pick a number of 30 reps-100 reps over there. I would say most of our conversations are taking place without that China topic, but there is a long, long way to go in that 1.3 billion-person country, as well as you want to.

Sorry.

Brett Fishbin (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

All right. No, I appreciate that. I just had one more question. It's come up a couple of times on the call about the OUS Autograft performance. I was hoping you could maybe just comment on what's gone differently or better than originally expected. I think a couple of quarters ago, you were talking about maybe $2 million for the full year, but obviously doing a little better there. Was it the original expectation was conservative or just getting market acceptance faster than you thought? Any color there would be awesome. Thank you.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Great. I love it. It's sort of a softball question, so I love doing that. Feels to me like maybe we didn't realize the strength of our channel. We've been over there for so long in so many countries direct. Maybe we didn't realize the strength of our channel and how quickly they could get to vascular surgeons with this device. I think we were a little bit nervous going in that since it's more of an AV access device in the U.S., and AV access isn't really that typical over in Europe. They use the patient's native fistula to do the work rather than implanting prostheses like the Americans do. We're learning that, oh, maybe it doesn't get used for AV access over there, but maybe it gets used for peripheral bypasses. They're finding customers faster than we thought.

The doctors love it. We're getting great reports. There has been a wild card in this international thing in that South Africa, which does use grafts for AV access, has exploded in terms of sales. You have basically Europe and South Africa. I think South Africa is going to give you some $300,000 in Q3 alone. Something huge has happened in South Africa. We've had the same dealer forever. They're an excellent dealer, and they have 50 or 60 reps down there. It is a large country. I think it's 55 million people in South Africa. You have that helping out with the European launch to help it all go a lot better than expected. I hope that's a good answer.

Operator (participant)

Your next question?

Go ahead.

Brett Fishbin (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

I was just saying thank you. Thank you, George. I'm all good.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Thanks a lot, Brett.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Sidoti of Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Jim Sidoti (Analyst)

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Can you give us the operating income or the CapEx of the quarter?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah.

Jim Sidoti (Analyst)

Operating cash flow. [crosstalk]

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah. Cash flow from operations, Jim, was $28.8 million. The CapEx was $2.3 million.

Jim Sidoti (Analyst)

The increase in the share count, is that related to the share price? Is that where you expect it to be in the fourth quarter?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

The increase in the share count. On a reported basis, Jim, for the first time, the convert was not antedilutive. If you look at our Q, which we'll file tomorrow morning, you'll see the reconciliation. We did have to bring in some of the convert shares on a net converted basis. That was a minor point that you'll see in the Q. Overall, I think you can expect that each quarter, we're adding to share count through employee equity. The fourth quarter is actually the largest quarter. We do a lot of grants in the fourth quarter. You have a lot of vesting dates for restricted stock in the fourth quarter. It will be up marginally in the fourth quarter due to the employee vesting.

Jim Sidoti (Analyst)

All right. So around in that 24.5 million shares?

George LeMaitre (CEO)

No, it won't be up that high. I think we're at 23.5 now. It'll be maybe 24, Jim, probably closer.

Jim Sidoti (Analyst)

Okay. Because on the press release say you're at 24,392.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Kyle Bauser of Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Dorian LeBlanc (CFO)

Hey, RG. One second. Let's finish off Jim's question before we move along. Sorry about that, Kyle, but let's pause to get a decent answer here. Or maybe we get back to Jim with more data.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah. Jim, we're at 24,392. You're right. 24,392 here. We're doing it off the wrong page. And you probably expect that to go up to 24,500. I think that's what you said.

Dorian LeBlanc (CFO)

So you were right on, Jim. My apologies.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Jim, are you all set with questions? You want to go after something else? Okay.

Operator (participant)

All right. Your next question comes from the line of Kyle Bauser of Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Kyle Bauser (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you. Some really nice sales growth, of course, across key product categories here. Just looking at volume increases, can you speak a bit more about the makeup of this growth, I guess, in terms of new accounts versus higher utilization within existing accounts? I mean, I think you've got 12,000 surgeons you're calling clients. I think there's a TAM of maybe 22,000 vascular surgeons out there worldwide. I know there's a lot going on in terms of flipping from distributor to direct and new launches, etc. I'm just trying to get a sense of the kind of growth mix profile of new business versus higher utilization in existing business.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Hey, Kyle, before I get to that question, just a quick welcome to you and ROTH reinitiating coverage. It's great to have you along for all these calls.

As to your question, I do not have a great answer for that, to be honest with you. I do not want to speak off the tip of my tongue here. I could come back to you separately as to what you are looking for. Does the unit growth come from new accounts or more utilization at the current accounts? Is that sort of the essence of the question? Right.

Kyle Bauser (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, exactly. Yep.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

I honestly do not have a good answer for you. Dave, anything?

Dave Roberts (President)

Kyle, it's Dave Roberts. I would say I don't have a firm answer, but I would tell you directionally, in the U.S. and North America, maybe less new accounts, whereas in Europe, and in Europe, particularly due to Autograft and a little bit the U.K. allografts, those are a little bit more new accounts. Then Asia-Pac, which is our newest reach in the world, let's say, where we have gone direct in some new countries like Thailand and Korea, etc., probably a little bit more tilted towards the new account greenfields over there.

Kyle Bauser (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate the welcome as well. We're excited to be following the name. Also, some really nice margin improvement here, both in gross margin and operating margin. You talked about manufacturing efficiencies and moderations of OpEx. Just trying to get a sense of the types of, maybe more specifically, manufacturing efficiencies and examples of moderating operating expense just to understand what still remains above and beyond kind of just economies of scale, if you will.

Dorian LeBlanc (CFO)

Yeah, Kyle, I think scale does help in several of the businesses, especially the businesses that are growing fast. We've talked about RestoreFlow benefiting from scale as that has ramped up. I think we have been working pretty diligently on efficiencies across the expense base. We had some manufacturing efficiency projects around automation that have paid off. It's allowed us to reduce overall direct labor headcount.

We're working on more of the commercial operational efficiencies around logistics and shipping as well that we think will continue to pay off for us. George mentioned just better management of the sales reps and some performance-based management there. I'd say that stretches across the employee base in general. We have been focusing on just delivering operating leverage in the back half of 2025. I think all of those have helped contribute to the strong op ink.

Kyle Bauser (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great update, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks a lot, Kyle. Welcome.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Snyder of Citizens. Please go ahead.

Daniel Snyder (Commercial Credit Analyst)

Yeah. Great. Thanks for the questions. I said two quick ones. First, I wanted to ask on the open cardiac call point. I think you commented that it was particularly strong last quarter. I think that had to do with RestoreFlow. I was curious what you saw in 3Q in terms of performance. More broadly, are there any trends in this area that are playing out into the end of the year and into 2026 that you think are interesting or we should keep top of mind? Thanks.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Yeah. I'm glad you bring up the Q2 topic because Q3 was just almost a repeat performance. If you look at allograft, it grew about 56% on the cardiac side and about 14% on the vascular side. You have the same type of dynamics going on. In general, the cardiac allograft business is growing a lot faster than the peripheral vascular allograft business. We like both of the businesses, but we're newer to cardiac. Oddly, we don't put as much emphasis on cardiac. I think our sales force feels as though it's a peripheral vascular sales force, and this cardiac thing is sort of a new thing for them. Oddly, there's less attention on it by the sales reps, but the results in this one particular category are a lot better with cardiac. It's a little bit led by the U.K. and Canada.

Another theme here is that the Canadian results are sort of starting to come down into the United States as the new manager of the sales force is Canadian. He's been here for a year and a half, but he's just getting going here, and he's Canadian, not American. He's bringing some of his bag of tricks up in Canada down to the States.

Daniel Snyder (Commercial Credit Analyst)

Great. Appreciate that. Just one follow-up on carotid shunts. Just on the quarter, was there anything that was driving that 18% growth? I think looking back, the year-over-year comp is actually pretty difficult at 22%. I just wanted to see if there was anything that was specific to 3Q. Just a little bit more broadly, I feel like carotid shunts gets called out two or three times a year, two or three quarters a year, just having double-digit growth. Longer term, how do you think about this product? How should we think about this product? Anything on the market or its long-term trajectory would be great. Thanks.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Sure. Sure. I think Edith, we're still benefiting from the fact that Bard left the business, particularly in Europe, but also in the U.S., about a year and a half to two and a half years ago. In Europe, we've been left with an extremely high market share where we're able to sort of do what we want with pricing. In the U.S., it's not quite as nice as that. Our market share is more down in the 20s and 25s, and so it's not quite as flexible, but it feels more like a European thing. I think they left us with a nice position. I think you're seeing that in terms of units and also a lot of pricing flexibility on that product line. Yes, you're right to say it keeps coming up a lot over the last two or three years.

It stands to reason because of Bard exiting.

Daniel Snyder (Commercial Credit Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the questions.

George LeMaitre (CEO)

Thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

That ends our Q&A session, and we appreciate your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.