Stryker - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day. Welcome to the first quarter 2023 Stryker earnings call. My name is Todd, 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. Please note 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. 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 CEO)

Welcome to Stryker's first quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Glenn Boehnlein, Stryker CFO, and Jason Beach, Vice President of 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. Glenn will then provide additional details regarding our quarterly results before opening the call to Q&A. In the first quarter, we delivered organic sales growth of 13.6%, with double-digit growth in both MedSurg and Neurotechnology and Orthopaedics and Spine. Our international business continues to be a growth engine with strong results in all countries other than China, which had negative growth due to COVID and volume-based procurement. We are also seeing good traction with our pricing initiatives, delivering positive pricing overall in the first quarter.

Importantly, we have begun to realize the gradual improvement of component availability and lessened supply chain constraints. We delivered quarterly adjusted EPS of $2.14, reflecting 8.6% growth compared to the first quarter of 2022, driven by our strong sales performance. With one quarter behind us, we now expect an increased full-year organic sales growth of 8%-9%. Coming off a year with almost 10% organic sales growth, this continued sales momentum is a testament to our team's strong execution. We are increasing our expected adjusted earnings per share to $10.05 to $10.25 a share.

I remain pleased with our ongoing commitment to talent and culture, which is reflected in the recognition of Stryker for the 13th year in a row as one of Fortune's 100 best companies to work for. I would like to thank our leaders for maintaining our positive culture through the significant growth that we have experienced over this period of time. In addition, we recently published our third annual comprehensive report, which captures our commitment and disclosures on our three pillars of corporate responsibility: Stronger People, Healthier Planet, and Good Business. In July, we will share a virtual corporate responsibility roundtable with leaders from across the organization, bringing to life our progress and how these three pillars tie to our mission. Finally, we'll be holding an Investor Day on November 8th in Mahwah, New Jersey. We will provide more details about this event in the coming months.

I will now turn the call over to Jason.

Jason Beach (VP of Finance and Investor Relations)

Thanks, Kevin. My comments today will focus on providing an update on the current environment as well as capital demand, product launches, updates on Mako, and acquisitions. Procedural volumes continued to recover throughout the first quarter in most countries. As a reminder, Q1 of 2022 had softer volumes in many markets because of COVID-related impacts. While volumes are recovering, hospital staffing pressures continue in pockets around the globe, and patient backlog remains. As mentioned on the Q4 call, these challenges will likely resolve gradually, and we continue to expect this will be a moderate tailwind as we move through 2023. Additionally, demand for our capital products remained healthy in the quarter, as seen from the double-digit organic growth of our Medical, Endoscopy, and Instruments divisions. Our capital order book remains strong as we head into Q2. Our product super cycle is underway and driving positive momentum.

This began in late 2022 with the U.S. launch of our System 9 power tools, which gained momentum in the quarter, and it is getting great customer feedback regarding ergonomics and quality. In mid Q1, we launched the Neptune S Waste Management System. We've seen significant trialing already with positive customer feedback related to workflow advantages and environmental benefits. Also, some of our other launches this year include the Xpedition powered stair chair, Mako Total Knee 2.0 software for knees, Q Guidance for cranial procedures, and the Insignia hip stem, pacing to be on track for 85% launch by year-end. Finally, we received 510(k) clearance on our 1788 Camera Platform, which will expand our Endoscopy division addressable market into new procedures, including the ability to visualize lung and other cancers. As a reminder, the launch of the 1788 Camera is set for late Q2.

We continue to see steady progress with these launches and expect them to be a tailwind for growth in the coming quarters and years. The progress of our Mako offense has resulted in continued growth of our installed base combined with high utilization rates. In the U.S., we realized strength in our rental contracts, which resulted in lower upfront revenue for the quarter. We continue to be agnostic to the form these deals take and are offering flexible options for our customers to acquire capital equipment. Our Vocera integration continues to progress well and as a reminder, is now included in our organic growth beginning in February of this year. Our expectation that sales will accelerate beginning in Q2 of this year remains unchanged. We will provide our next update on Vocera when we report our full year 2023 results.

Lastly, we have obtained regulatory clearance regarding our acquisition of Cerus Endovascular, and we expect the deal will close shortly. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Glenn.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Thanks, Jason. Today, I will focus my comments on our first quarter financial results and the related drivers. Our detailed financial results have been provided in today's press release. Our organic sales growth was 13.6% in the quarter. The first quarter of 2023 had one more selling day than 2022, which is approximately a 1% benefit. The impact from pricing in the quarter was favorable by 0.7%. We continue to see a positive trend from our pricing initiatives, particularly in our U.S. MedSurg businesses, all of which contributed positive pricing for the quarter. Foreign currency had a 2.2% unfavorable impact on sales. In the quarter, U.S. organic sales growth was 12.6%. International organic sales growth was 16.6%, impacted by positive sales momentum across most of our international markets.

Our adjusted EPS of $2.14 in the quarter was up 8.6% from 2022, driven by higher sales and a favorable adjusted income tax rate, partially offset by inflationary pressures and the impact of foreign currency exchange, which was unfavorable $0.06. I will provide some highlights around our quarterly segment performance. In the quarter, MedSurg and Neurotechnology had constant currency sales growth of 13.1%, with organic sales growth of 12.4%, which included 12.1% of U.S. organic growth and 13.3% of international organic growth. Instruments had U.S. organic sales growth of 8.9%, led by double-digit growth in the surgical technology business. From a product perspective, sales growth was led by power tools, Steri-Shield, waste management, and smoke evacuation.

Endoscopy had U.S. organic sales growth of 16.2%, driven by strong growth across most of its major businesses. The growth was highlighted by general surgery, sports medicine, sustainability, communications, and ProCare products. Medical had U.S. organic sales growth of 13.2%, reflecting solid performances across our Acute Care, Emergency Care, and Sage businesses, and benefiting from improvement in product supply throughout the quarter. Our U.S. neurovascular business returned to growth with organic sales growth of 7.3%, reflecting a strong performance in our hemorrhagic business. The U.S. neurocranial business had organic sales growth of 9.1%, which included double-digit growth in our Sonopet iQ, signature high-speed drills, bipolar forceps, and MaxFace neuro product lines. Internationally, MedSurg and Neurotechnology had organic sales growth of 13.3%, reflecting double-digit growth in almost all businesses.

Geographically, this included strong performances in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan. Orthopaedics and Spine had constant currency sales growth of 15.1%, with organic sales growth of 15.2%, which included organic growth of 13.3% in the U.S. and 20.3% internationally. Our U.S. hip business grew 16.2% organically, reflecting strong primary hip growth fueled by our Insignia hip stem and continued procedural growth. Our U.S. knee business grew 20.7% organically, which reflects our market-leading position in a robotic-assisted knee procedures. Our U.S. trauma and extremities business grew 13.7% organically with strong performance across all three businesses. Our U.S. spine business grew 6.3%, led by the performance in our enabling technology and interventional spine businesses, including the recently launched Q Guidance navigation system.

Our U.S. other ortho declined organically by 14.8%, primarily driven by the impact of deal mix changes, specifically more rentals related to Mako installations in the quarter. Internationally, Orthopaedics and Spine grew 20.3% organically, which reflects strong performances in Europe, Australia, Canada, and emerging markets. I will focus on operating highlights in the first quarter. Our adjusted gross margin of 63.2% was unfavorable approximately 90 basis points from the first quarter of 2022, reflecting the impact of increased manufacturing and supply chain costs driven by inflationary pressures, somewhat offset by price and volume increases. Sequentially and compared to Q4 2022, we have improved our adjusted gross margin by approximately 50 basis points driven by mix, price, decreases in spot prices, and improved manufacturing efficiencies.

Adjusted R&D spending was 6.5% of sales, which represents a 70 basis points decrease from the first quarter of 2022, due primarily to higher comparable in 2022, which related to the ramping of costs for product launches. Our adjusted SG&A was 35.6% of sales, which was 50 basis points higher than the first quarter of 2022, primarily due to normalization of sales force expansion and meetings. In summary, for the quarter, our adjusted operating margin was 21.1% of sales, which was approximately 70 basis points unfavorable to the first quarter of 2022. This per- performance is primarily driven by the aforementioned inflationary pressures, primarily on gross margin. Adjusted other income and expense of $65 million for the quarter was slightly higher than 2022, mainly driven by a one-time benefit in 2022.

The first quarter of 2023 had an effective tax rate of 12.8%, reflecting the impact of geographic mix and certain discrete tax items, including stock compensation. For 2023, we now expect full year effective tax rate to be in the range of 14%-15%. Focusing on the balance sheet, we ended the first quarter with $1.8 billion of cash and marketable securities and total debt of $13.1 billion. Approximately $100 million of term loan debt was paid down in the quarter. Turning to cash flow, our year-to-date cash from operations is $445 million. This performance reflects the results of net earnings and higher accounts receivable collections in the first quarter.

Considering our first quarter results, our strong order book for capital equipment and continued positive procedural trends, we now expect full year 2023 organic sales growth to be in the range of 8%-9%, with pricing to be relatively neutral for the year. If foreign exchange rates hold near current levels, we anticipate that sales and EPS will be modestly unfavorably impacted for the full year, being more negative in the first half of the year. This is included in our guidance. Based on our performance in the first quarter, together with our strong sales momentum and further progressive easing of supply chain disruptions throughout the year, we now expect adjusted earnings per share in the range of $10.05-$10.25. Now I will open up the call for Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touch-tone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Once again, that is star and one to ask a question. Our first question comes from Larry Biegelsen with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Larry Biegelsen (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question, and congratulations on a really impressive start to the year here. Kevin, I guess I would just love to start with the growth rates we saw in Q1 in some of your businesses like both in Ortho and MedSurg. You know, what in your view was there anything here that was one time here? You know, what do you see that's sustainable?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Larry, for the question. You saw we had a great fourth quarter of sales growth, another great quarter this quarter of sales growth. We did benefit from some softer comparisons given that Omicron was present in a lot of markets last year. I would tell you that the procedures are really ramping very nicely, and they have been really since the second half of last year. That's continued. The capital demand remains strong. We really have strength kind of across the portfolio of our company. That's what gives us the optimism to raise our full year guide.

Larry Biegelsen (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Let me just follow-up maybe for Glenn. If I'm doing the math right here, you know, you raised the guidance by about 70 to 80 basis points at the midpoint. The Q2 to Q4 organic growth, Glenn, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it implies about 7% at the midpoint. Is that close? Kind of, you know, how are you thinking about why the deceleration, I guess? How, and, you know, any color on the quarterly cadence from here. Thanks for taking the questions.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Larry, I will trust your math. You know, the one thing I will say is that, you know, as Kevin mentioned, Q1 maybe had a little bit of a softer comparable. Moving forward, we're gonna see stronger comparables. Right now we're still in the first quarter, we're anxious and excited about how the businesses are performing, but we're still, you know, mindful of the environment that we're in. We feel like this is a strong guide and implies solid performance.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robbie Marcus with JPMorgan.

Robbie Marcus (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

So great, I'll also add my congratulations on a really impressive quarter here. Maybe to focus in Ortho, I was kind of blown away by how good the growth rates were in hip, knee, and extremity. Would love to get a little more color on exactly what you're seeing there, how much the anterior hip stem is helping you in hip, what's going on in knee, and you know, any color you could give on the trauma and extremities business and what's driving the trends there

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Robbie. I would tell you that the knee performance is just a continuation of what you've seen for the past three or four years, where all of the Mako growth, the cementless growth continues to fuel market-leading growth. That's not a new story. Some of the numbers OUS were pretty breathtaking, but part of that was due to softer comparables, and part of that's due to really picking up Mako installations OUS. They continue to be strong in the U.S., but OUS has a much longer runway and started much later, as you know. Mako will fuel that OUS growth in the same way that it's fueled our U.S. growth.

For many years. That's the knee part. On hip, it's really a combination of the Insignia stem as well as Mako. The 4.0 software was launched within two years, in the last 2 years. That combined with Insignia really positions us beautifully for direct anterior, and we really like the momentum that we're seeing in hips, we expect that to continue. Trauma extremities has been just a great story. The Wright Medical deal has turned out spectacularly well. The upper extremities business is absolutely on fire. It's a market-leading business and grew very strong double-digit growth. As well, foot and ankle is really starting to pick up steam and had a very strong performance.

Really all three of those trauma and extremity businesses, including core trauma, had strong performances, and the outlook for those businesses continues to be very positive.

Robbie Marcus (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Maybe, as a follow-up, your Medical came in another really good quarter there. ProCuity launch continues strong. You know, we heard one of your competitors, specifically in the bed market, talk about a weaker capital environment. Is that something you're seeing in some of the less revenue-generating capital equipment items and any color you could give specifically in Medical and how the beds are going? Thanks.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. So far, we're still seeing very strong orders for all of our capital equipment businesses. Large capital, small capital. We still have healthy order books across the board. There is a bit of noise here and there that you hear from some hospitals saying, well, they're starting to think about capital, but we're not seeing it in our order book, at least not yet.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will come from Joanne Wuensch with Citi.

Joanne Wuensch (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good evening, thank you for taking the question, and quite a nice quarter. I'm gonna agree, some of the growth rates in hips and knees, particularly in the U.S., were quite strong. I just want to pick through a few things. Can you give us an update on where you think you are in the ASC? I'll throw in my follow-up now on updated thoughts on use of cash. Thank you.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. The ASC, Joanne, continues its trend that we've been seeing for some time. Continued progression in both hips and knees. We're now in double-digit penetration in both hips and knees. A little bit more in knees, but they're both continuing. I'd call it a steady progression, and I don't think that'll slow down. I think that'll just continue over the next few years with the expansion into ASCs, with construction projects, with more and more procedures moving out. We're even starting to see some of the extremity procedures move out, even some spine procedures. It's a trend that will continue, but it's not something that's going to ramp exponentially because it's gated by construction and building out of new ORs, so it just takes time. Then the second question was on...

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Cash flow.

Joanne Wuensch (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Well, use of cash.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Use of cash. Yeah. Sure, Joanne. I mean, it was honestly a strong quarter for cash flow for us, you know, coming in at $445 million. I will tell you that we benefited from elevated receivable levels as we exited Q4 last year. As we think about sort of the priorities for cash flow, you know, we really haven't changed sort of how we think about, first of all, we want to focus on paying down the term loan. We paid $100 million in Q1. The remaining balance of $750 million, we will plan on paying off during this year. You know, we're also seeing, you know, we're closing on Cerus Endovascular. That will happen fairly shortly here. We are allocating some cash to M&A.

Teams are still working, and we're still being fairly choosy in terms of looking at opportunities and making sure we're lining up things for when cash flow frees up a little.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Medical Supplies & Devices and Life Science Tools & Diagnostics Team)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on a really strong start here. Kevin, maybe my first question here on the performance here on the Ortho side. I guess that there's a lot of moving parts. Is this, you know, there's some thoughts and, you know, perhaps we're seeing a pull forward of demand and recessionary fears, as against the counter to that is share gains given the new product momentum, it versus, you know, perhaps some of the backlog being felt here? Can you just lay out the different pieces here on what is happening in Ortho markets from Stryker's perspective? Related to that, I'm curious on, you know, smart implants.

Where's Stryker on smart implants, given we just had an NTAP in that space?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Well, there's a lot of questions in there, Vijay. Let me start first by saying that there really isn't a new story, right? The knee business continues its strong performance. The hip business, as we said, once we get in the Insignia stem launch, we're going to start to be able to grow above market when you combine it with Mako. With Wright Medical combined with Stryker, we have just an incredibly strong position in trauma and extremities. We just executed extremely well. The market is better, and we said that. There was going to be a tailwind. There's no new news there. There is a tailwind. I don't think it's pulled forward. I think you're going to see that tailwind last. We said 6 quarters was our estimate, this is the first of six quarters where you're seeing that tailwind.

Keep in mind that the comps are part of the story, not just for Stryker, for the entire market. The comps were affected by COVID in the prior year. You're going to see an elevated market growth this quarter. I do believe the tailwind will continue into second quarter, third quarter, fourth. Again, a moderate tailwind. Our ability to take advantage of our product flow and of course, our sales force execution is something that I don't see changing. I think we'll continue to be able to perform very well relative to the market, and the market's gonna be a little bit more elevated. The smart implants. No, we don't have any current plans for smart implants.

We do have the MotionSense that we've launched, which is a wearable that measures both on the femur and the tibia. We're in a limited launch on that, and that is a way to make sure that you can monitor post-operatively, all the types of measures that you would be thinking about after the procedure. That's our approach versus having it implanted in the body.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Medical Supplies & Devices and Life Science Tools & Diagnostics Team)

That's helpful commentary, Kevin. Maybe one for Glenn here on gross margins in the quarter, up sequentially. Glenn, how much of this is volume leverage given revenues came in, you know, about? I'm just thinking about fiscal 2024 here. Again, I'm not asking for guidance, but my understanding was Stryker is still seeing a lot of inflationary pressures here in 2022. Most of it is the inventory flowing through the P&L. Given pricing was positive and as inflationary impact abates, how should we think about margin progression? Should we directly be thinking of maybe perhaps above normal margin years for Stryker going forward?

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, we, you know, we're pleased and we've made some incremental progress, and that's kind of why I wanted to call out sequentially as being maybe a little bit more important as you look at margin, year over year. You know, if you look at just sort of, just for the quarter, you know, some of the big things are really price. We did see reduced spot buys, but keep in mind, we're still amortizing those 2022 spot buys, so that's going to hit us, you know, on into third quarter. We also, you know, as supply evened out, it just allowed our, you know, manufacturing to be a little more consistent and drive better efficiencies. We kind of got back on driving better, manufacturing efficiencies.

The other thing we're seeing is that, you know, freight rates are monitoring, and we're seeing improvement in those rates. You know, the couple pieces I would say, you know, mix was a bit of a tailwind. Obviously, if you think about ortho and spine and the kind of gross margins they drive versus MedSurg, you know, that was a little bit of a tailwind. I think that will continue to be a little bit of a tailwind as the year progresses. We are still tempered in this environment, this inflationary environment, though. That will keep a tamper. You know, we're early in the year, Vijay, and we're not thinking that we want to guide on gross margin yet.

I think we see some daylight, and we feel good about that, but, it will be a work in progress as the whole year, pushes forward.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew O'Brien with Piper Sandler.

Matthew O'Brien (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe to follow-up a little bit on Larry's question on guidance. You know, I share his math. As I look at the numbers, I think you beat by $200 million on the top line and kinda carried that through for the full year. I think Kevin at Academy said he thought there'd be a little bit of headroom on pricing. That might have just been an ortho comment. Also staffing is getting better. Staffing better, pricing seems like it's getting better. I think, you know, given where the stock was trading, people are expecting you to guide a little bit higher if you did beat.

Why not guide a little bit higher for the full year, incrementally higher than the beat, given what we're seeing in your markets and the super cycle just about to start? Thank you.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, thanks. First of all, I'd tell you that, we started the year with a pretty good guide and obviously had a very strong quarter, and we raised, and it's only one quarter. The supply chain, to Glenn's point, there are still, let's call them brush fires happening all the time that we're having to tamp out. We are not completely out of the woods on supply chain issues which can cause uncertainty. Launches have to actually occur on time and be able to deliver what we hope they can deliver. That creates uncertainty. We had roughly almost 10% organic sales growth last year with a monster Q4. There's a lot of reasons why, you know, let's just temper our enthusiasm. It was a great quarter. I'm very happy with it. You know, we've moved it up.

Let's see how things play out over the next quarter or two quarters before we get ahead of ourselves. You've seen us in the past. We're not afraid. You know, we don't have to raise once for the full year. If things go well in the future, if the launches hit on the right time, if we're able to sustain this kind of price performance, then we can think about raising. It's a little too premature to do that right now.

Matthew O'Brien (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Makes sense. As a follow-up, Kevin. On Mako, you know, I know more rentals. It just is, as I look at the rest of the business on the capital side of things, you're not having any problem selling things. I know Mako is more expensive, but you've got ROSA out there, you've got VELYS from J&J, and now you're doing more rental contracts. I guess the interpretation from most investors would be that, hey, they're seeing more pressure in terms of the ability to sell Makos. Is that fair, or are we just not able to see that you're still capturing your fair share of Mako sales and placements within the marketplace? Thanks.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, just to be clear, we are very bullish on the future of Mako, we have been. If you look at our hip and knee number, that's a pretty good indicator that a lot of our growth comes from accounts that had Makos installed. If the competitors offer things for free, that obviously causes the customer to say, "Do I need to pay something up front?" We've always had rentals and financing within the mix of offerings. In the past, they would be much more inclined to purchase.

They're now leaning much more towards rentals, and honestly, it doesn't bother me at all. Then Jason, any comments on rentals?

Jason Beach (VP of Finance and Investor Relations)

Yeah, I think maybe just one additional comment relative to rentals. I think the thing to keep in mind is a large percentage of these rentals, they'll flip to purchases, right? It's not like they're going in and the units are coming back out. To Kevin's point, we feel really good about the Mako business.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. When I say competitive, pressures have caused a little bit of a shift in customer behavior, that doesn't concern us. We are winning at a very high rate, and the Makos that are being installed are being used, at a very high rate, and that to me is what's critical.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG.

Ryan Zimmerman (Managing Director and Medical Technology Analyst)

Thanks for taking the questions. Let me clarify one of the segments. I wanna ask guidance. You know, I think others were kind of getting at around the progression of quarters for the rest of the year. If, if you look at the guidance on the top line relative to the growth and guidance on the bottom line, specifically for Glenn, I'm just curious if it's a little higher on the top line, doesn't quite flow through, and if there's anything in there that maybe you're reinvesting in, Glenn, that you want us to think about specific to the EPS growth at 8.6% relative to the top line.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah. It's a good question, Ryan. I think, you know, first of all, if you look at sort of the midpoint of both guides, sales and EPS, we actually are starting to show leverage. I think that's a positive direction. We're still very early in the year, and we are going to be mindful that we're still in, you know, as Kevin referred to, somewhat volatile circumstances relative to supply chain, some other macroeconomic factors. You know, that causes us to make sure that we're being smart about where we land the guide. You know, to that point, as we see the quarters play out over this year, if we see improvement, I think we'll definitely feel compelled to take the guide up.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

We did have a little bit of a lower tax rate as you saw this quarter based on some discretes and stock comp. That's gonna, we think, start to get elevated over the next three quarters. Overall, we really feel like the guide is an appropriate lift both on the top and the bottom line.

Ryan Zimmerman (Managing Director and Medical Technology Analyst)

Okay. Kevin, you know, I'd love to get your perspective on the state of the spine market right now. There's obviously a lot of disruption, as you know, but you know, NuVa, Globus is progressing forward. As of right now, both, you know, parties voted to consummate that deal. Is there any disruption that you're able to capitalize on that we're seeing in your U.S. spine numbers right now as they are starting to show some nice growth?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. I think it's too early right now for us to have really seen much in the way of disruption. I think the disruption will come once they start to bring the organizations together and decide which salespeople are calling on which surgeons and which products they're gonna keep, et cetera. There really hasn't been much in the way of disruption from both of the mergers that are just starting to happen in the space. I'm pleased about our spine business momentum, it's really because of our own innovations, some of the licensing deals that we've done, getting the Q Guidance out, which is really getting very favorable attraction in enabling technologies. We've started to show our Mako Spine, which is also getting very good feedback, although that won't be launched until next year, customers are warming up to that.

I think it's more about us focusing on our own business, and if we can bring the types of innovations that we need to the market, I think we're going to continue to do well in spine.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Shagun Singh with RBC Capital Markets.

Ken Wong (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi there. This is Ken Wong for Shagun Singh. Congrats on a nice quarter. I have a quick question on M&A. Can you talk about your appetite for M&A and remind us of the deal size that you would be willing to go for and what respect to valuations you look for? What do you think about valuations right now? Specifically, Kevin, like you've called out interest in five different adjacencies over the last couple of weeks in M&A. Can you talk about urology and women's health, the call point in that area and if that makes sense for Stryker to have?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Let me start by saying that this year, to Glenn's previous remarks, we are focused on paying down debt and getting the term loan off the books. We are continuing to pursue what we call tuck-ins, and Cerus Endovascular is one of those tuck-ins, which will close shortly. We have other tuck-ins that are in the works right now, and we'll see which ones of those happen this year. This year is more of a year of tuck-ins than it is doing billion-dollar type of deals. But as we get into next year, if we continue with the strong cash flow performance that we're currently experiencing, we'll be back in the market for those larger-sized deals. The teams haven't slowed down their work. They're continuing to pursue discussions with many of our targets.

Valuations are getting better, which is good. Interest rates are going up, which is bad. On the overall basis, we think the market's still primed with many, many good targets. We continue to believe that using our available cash for acquisitions as the first source of cash and the first use of our cash is the right strategy for Stryker. It's a key part of our growth formula. Specific to your question on women's health and urology, we do have a presence in urology with our Endoscopy division, and that is an interesting space that we'd like to build around over time. We do have some women's health presence also.

A combination of part of the Instruments division as well as our Endoscopy division is present right now, within breast care. These are not markets where we're sort of absent. We're already present to some degree. If we could get a larger presence, that would be something that is one of many, as you mentioned, many adjacencies that we're looking at. I think that's all I'll say for this earnings call.

Ken Wong (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks so much for the color.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Jennings with TD Cowen.

Eric Anderson (VP of Equity Research)

Hi, this is Eric calling for Josh. Thanks for taking the question. Wanted to focus on your Mako Shoulder and Spine applications. I know we're still a ways off from commercial launch there, but could you just talk about the next steps in terms of development and the regulatory processes there? Are there any milestones that we should have on our radar for those applications? The follow-up would just be on, are you able to share what sort of submission those applications would be to get clearance? Thank you.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Listen, we're not gonna get into all the details of the launch or specific milestones. Suffice to say that we are still very much on track with the timelines that we laid out last quarter. No change and continued really positive feedback from customers that we are exposing to the technology. We feel the regulatory path has gotten more certain, which is why we did never provide a date prior because we weren't as confident on the regulatory path. These are complex launches. If something changes, we'll let you know. Right now, everything remains on track as per the last discussion we had.

Eric Anderson (VP of Equity Research)

Understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Miksic with Barclays.

Matt Miksic (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good evening. Thanks for taking the question. I have to say, I'm not sure that congrats on the quarter quite adequately covers these numbers. I mean, they're really just out of, out of bounds, I guess, in terms of these end markets. A couple of follow-ups, if I could. Just looking at U.S. knees kind of as one line item, it looks like you accelerated on obviously just year-over-year, but also on a two-year stack basis into the first quarter. You know, just thinking about the drivers there, and how sustainable they are, you obviously had a big lead in the market on robotics. We all know how that has worked out.

Wondering if you'd talk about how you feel about the lead you have in ASCs, and whether, you know, this could shape up to be kind of a similar long-term driver. Just also on that subject, you know, rentals came up earlier. I'm wondering what, you know, to what degree, you know, this, you know, rentals are really showing up more in the ASCs. I know there's a couple of questions in there, but I did have one follow-up on MedSurg, if I could.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yes, we have a very significant lead in robotics. We have a significant lead in cementless. We have a significant lead in the ASCs. We have all three of those factors are at play and contributing to strong performance. You are right. In the ASC, they tend to shift much more towards rentals, or let's call it forms of financing because there's always physician ownership as part of these deals. They don't have the capital budget that hospitals do to make a purchase. They do prefer financing. You'll continue to see that with ASCs, much more of a shift towards rentals. We're seeing with ASCs, strong demand for Mako, which is really exciting for us.

If there's a three OR orthopedic ASC, usually at least one of those will have a Mako in them. That, our offense plays very well for that, given all the other technology we can provide for the ASC. Those, I would say all three of those factors are really at play, having significant leads across those three dimensions.

Matt Miksic (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

That's super helpful. Thank you for the color. On MedSurg, just, you know, specifically, you know, your backorder, your order, condition is sort of stable. I'm wondering, have you started to see, some of the, some of the bed backorders specifically start to move or accelerate or, you know, thoughts and timing on that? The factors you mentioned still expecting Vocera to accelerate. Maybe just an update on some of the factors that you're expecting to drive that acceleration. Thanks.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. Back, if you think about Medical's gonna have another very strong year this year. Even though you saw boomer in the fourth quarter, I did signal that Medical will still have another strong year. They have the largest backlog of all the divisions of our company right now, and that's across emergency care as well as acute care. The largest is within Medical. We're still fighting. The supply chain is getting better, you know, every month, but it's still not easy out there in the supply chain for Medical. Then the other capital businesses follow behind Medical. Still a very, very strong order book and always a second there. On Vocera, yeah, we're really pleased. We predicted this, right? If you go back to second quarter of last year, we said we're going through some disruption.

We're making changes to this, the way that we go to market and in the commercial model. We're pushing much more towards the cloud. Very intentional decisions and things have played out basically as we thought. Their orders have also picked up pretty meaningfully, and we do expect to see an acceleration starting in Q2 based on the orders we already have in the system. We know that that's gonna start to be a nice contributor. Given how much we paid for Vocera, we will provide some more metrics on that at the end of the year, and we plan to probably do that on an annual basis as we do with Mako.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Travis Steed with Bank of America.

Travis Steed (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on the good quarter as well. I wanted to break down Q1 a bit more. A lot of companies have mentioned January was really the strong month where there was a confidence set. Curious how you saw February and March shape up and even April. I heard you say procedures were ramping over the quarter, if that implies April even kind of better than February and March, just any kind of color you can give on the shape of the quarter and how things are trending across the different businesses would be helpful?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

I'd say January and February are both very strong versus prior year because those two months were more affected last year. March was a little bit, let's say, more muted than the first two months. I would say April has continued at good levels. When I say ramping, it was really sort of over last year's fourth quarter into this year's first quarter. April continues to be strong. Just these elevated procedure levels are not that different between January, February, March or April. It's just more about what the comparatives were in the prior period, continue to expect good volumes overall.

Travis Steed (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Glenn, maybe touch a bit more on the margins, if you can help quantify some of the supply chain purchasing improvements we've seen so far. And how to think about the first half to second half margin improvements that just come from the higher costs rolling off and then maybe longer term, you know, the path back to the. Is there a path back to the 2019 gross and operating margins?

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah, sure. The couple things like, you know, as we think about spot buys just in absolute dollar terms, we had a significantly less amount of purchases through that spot buy channel in Q1. You know, we know that, as we see 2022 impact amortize off, we're not really adding to that. I do know that that will give us a little bit of lift in the back half of the year. You know, I also think, you know, mix is helpful as ortho procedures continue to ramp, as Kevin mentioned. The other big thing will be these new product launches. We usually gain, you know, price on these sort of next-gen products that we put out there.

While that's not specifically in the price component that we quote, it definitely will help margin. You know, in terms of the path back to 2019, that is a question that we get fairly frequently. I would tell you that, you know, we're hyper-focused on regaining sort of our position on gross margin, obviously going after that by being as aggressive as we can on price and putting in really good programs that will help on the price side. We're seeing improved manufacturing efficiencies in other areas which also are going to drive. You know, I don't foresee that that would happen this year, but that, you know, beyond this year, we definitely are focused on what the pathway would be back to that.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Lichtman with Oppenheimer & Co..

Steve Lichtman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Congratulations, guys. I guess, Kevin, you know, tracking comps over the past three years obviously has been a challenge. I was wondering if you could give us your perspective on where you think underlying volume growth is for the joint recon market now?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, I think if you go back to 2019 and call that the last normal year that we've had, I would say we're fully back to 2019 and actually growing from that. You're right, it's very difficult to look at comps because you can't just look at last year. You have to look at how was last year versus the year before. It has been very tricky to your point. I think we're now in a kind of post-pandemic world. Even though we do have staffing shortages here and there, the surgeons are as busy as they've ever been. If they had sometimes some more staff, they could do even more. I would say we're in a very good position in the market. There's healthy demand.

Hospitals are learning how to, you know, get more procedures done. I would say we're fully back to the 2019 in most parts of the world. Maybe China is a little different. Outside of China, everything else is kind of fully back and building kind of what I'll call a normal growth rate off of being fully back. Of course, there's pent-up demand.

Steve Lichtman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Right. Right.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Thanks.

Steve Lichtman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thanks for that. Just follow-up. You, you talked about the pricing actions last quarter, and obviously those have kicked in, as you noted, particularly in Orthopaedics, a nice step. What is the sustainability of that sort of level of pricing you're able to hold here this year, particularly in Orthopaedics? Is this something that we could see sort of steadily fold in over the next few years? Is there some sort of catch up this year that we maybe shouldn't count on as we look beyond? Any sort of color on that would be helpful.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Sure. I mean, first off, we're super excited that these pricing programs that we put in place last year are really starting to take hold and we're seeing an impact. You know, MSNT continues to perform fairly positive. I would expect that they'll continue to perform at a positive or near positive level throughout the full year. You know, ortho is a little bit more complex. You know, it's heavily driven by contracts. You know, the impact of pricing can vary depending on the anniversary of those contracts. You know, really going after ortho and just trying to manage that to be a little less negative. You know, as you look at that price, you know, that we put out, it's impacted by mix.

These product introductions are going to impact that. I would say that all of these factors, kind of go into, you know, where our forecast was that, yeah, Q1 was great. As we anniversary these pricing programs, as we see new products come out, you know, we're gonna see a little moderation of the impact of that price, and that's where we're holding right now as the year progresses.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rick Wise with Stifel.

Rick Wise (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Good afternoon. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Glenn. I wanted to ask for a little more color, if we could, on SG&A. I know you're reluctant to get into forecasting or talking in too much detail about specific lines, but the SG&A was a lot higher than I expected this quarter. Yeah, volumes were higher, so was it higher commissions? As I look at last year, and I know there's a million moving pieces here, but you started out at, you know, $1.5 billion in SG&A, and it was roughly approximately that in each quarter. Is this start to the year giving us some sense of how to think about SG&A in the second, third, fourth quarters as well? Thank you.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah, no, great question. I mean, first and foremost, as you mentioned, the most variable item in SG&A really relates to sales commissions and relates to these tiered programs that we have for our reps. As they, you know, really perform and perform at quota, we pay them well. I think the second thing, some of the things that happened in first quarter, you know, we invested in order to support these high growth levels, and this means hiring sales reps. This means full-on national sales meetings, and you're seeing the sort of quarter-over-quarter impact of those things. I think in the background, we definitely still have this inflationary environment that obviously impacts some of those things that flow through SG&A. We had merit increases that also hit in Q1.

You know, I think that SG&A should moderate somewhat over the remainder of the year. Q1 is a little higher because of those factors I mentioned. I also would say that, you know, we are sort of trending toward a more kind of normalized pre-pandemic level of SG&A spend as it relates to a percent of sales.

Rick Wise (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. One other question to touch on sort of a side topic a little bit, but smoke evacuation, I know, you've talked about a lot in the past, Kevin. We've seen three states, I think I'm remembering correctly, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, smoke bills going into effect this year, 10 additional states in the pipeline. I know it's not all driven by state legislation, but nurse associations, et cetera, continue to want to move in this direction. Any update there? Are you still excited about this? Is this still gonna be an above average growth area for Stryker? Thanks so much.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Rick. Definitely excited about smoke evacuation. We now are at 11 states that mandate smoke evacuation with another roughly 10 that have legislation that will likely pass. It'll be a tailwind for growth for sure. We have that business captured in both a little bit of Endoscopy and also in Instruments just based on our portfolio of products. Both grew well north of 20% in the first quarter, and that'll continue as more and more states adopt. Definitely bullish on smoke evacuation. We're still in the early stages. Absolutely, with nursing shortages and nursing demands for safety, it plays very, very well.

Rick Wise (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Mishan with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Matthew Mishan (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. Not to harp on, like, the one outlier, but I guess on neurovascular, can you, could you comment on, like, on some of the weakness there, and how you expect that to progress through, kind of 2023?

Jason Beach (VP of Finance and Investor Relations)

Yeah, Matt, it's Jason. I'll take this one. I'd say a couple different things as you think about neurovascular. First off, in the U.S., you obviously saw in the first quarter, we returned back to growth. As we look at the rest of the year, you know, we're pleased with the progress in the 1st quarter, and we think that'll continue throughout the year in the U.S. As you think about international, right? As you well know, it's a dynamic environment in China with VBP, that will be volatile. We did experience some VBP activity in the 1st quarter. You also know that China overall is a bit immaterial, I won't get into the specifics of the impact in China, but it is included in our guidance. Yeah. For NV, China was a pretty significant business.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

For overall Stryker, not so much, but it was for NV. That negative you're seeing is really entirely driven by China in the international neurovascular business.

Matthew Mishan (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. excellent. Just on the other line where Mako is, I realize it's not all Mako in there. Just at what point do you expect that to lap how customers are purchasing Mako and potentially start showing some growth in that line?

Jason Beach (VP of Finance and Investor Relations)

Yeah. I'll take this one. As you can imagine, when you think about deal mix and some of the things that go into that line, it'll continue to move around as we go throughout this year. you know, as you start to get into next year, certainly, you would expect to see that line turn to positive. it is gonna be driven by deal mix as we go throughout this year.

Matthew Mishan (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Imron Zafar with Deutsche Bank.

Ken Wong (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question, and congratulations on a great quarter. I wanted to ask about the 1788 Platform-

Imron Zafar (Director and Senior Analyst)

Camera and Endoscopy. Can you just quantify first how TAM expansive that could be, and then how much potential there is for share gain with that camera once it sounds like it could be a little bit more needle moving than we've seen in prior launches for HD cameras? Thank you.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yes, thanks for the question. I wouldn't think so much about expansion of TAM. I would think much more about share gain because we're still basically in procedures that are using visualization. We're not creating new visualization for new procedures, but the reason I think it plays well for share gain is we have much better solutions for both sports medicine as well as neural procedures. We were always fabulous with abdominal surgery and general surgery, but not quite as strong in those two specialties. Being able to light up new fluorophores, new imaging agents to be able to detect cancer, that's game changing, right? We will be first to the market in being able to identify new forms of cancer. We will share that when those launches occur. We'll actually share that with you.

That will be a tremendous catalyst to drive share gain when you can identify critical parts of the anatomy much more precisely than the human eye can. We're very bullish on the long-term future for 1788 Platform.

Imron Zafar (Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Newitter with Truist Securities.

Richard Newitter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the quarter. Kevin, just on Mako and ASCs, and forgive me if this is a naive question, just not the way things work. Just given that you're involved so early with so many instances where ASCs are getting resurrected or built out, I'm curious, does that give you an opportunity to seed or get, you know, a robotics conversation or consideration, capital placement conversation going very early? I'm just wondering if that is kind of happening right now.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah. Being on the ground floor for ASCs is helpful for all of our capital equipment. The fact that we can provide a lot of what they need really helps. It puts us in a good position because we're on the ground floor. Mako speaks for itself. I mean, its brand is very strong in the market. The surgeons are very well aware of Mako, and they're asking for it. I think it gives us an advantage, frankly, not just for Mako, but for all of our capital equipment businesses being so involved or in the conversation, making it easy for the ASC to be able to not only design the ASCs, but actually be able to speed up the construction of the ASC if they partner with one company that can provide a lot of what they need.

Richard Newitter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yep. Kind of a similar tag-on question to that. You know, you've been asked in the past about cross-selling or a cross-service line. You've said that just hospitals, you know, haven't moved as quickly along the path of being able to negotiate, you know, one product area for another and thinking along those lines. Is the ASC kind of further along on that negotiation process? I'm just curious if you guys have an advantage there, where if you start to tack on additional adjacencies, you might be able to actually facilitate cross-selling with your strong foothold with the procedures that you're already in now and your, you know, the capital equipment businesses. Thanks.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Certainly for the ASCs, within orthopedic ASCs, they are buying really across product lines. They're still within the service line, yes, they're buying capital, they're buying disposables, they're buying implants, and versus hospitals that tend to stick at the product category level. This has been a shift with ASC for sure. They're not, they're not buying across into a new service line like orthopedics or general surgery because these ASCs are either orthopedic ASCs or they're GI ASCs or general surgery ASCs, they are quite specific. Within orthopedics and the orthopedic ASC, they are absolutely buying across product categories. That definitely plays to our advantage because we're very deep within these service lines, the service line of orthopedics and obviously neuro.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Danielle Antalffy with UBS.

Danielle Antalffy (Senior Analyst)

Hey, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on a really strong start to the year. Just one quick question for me, and sorry to harp on this. It's come up a few times on the call. Just as we look at the margins, not a lot of margin upside in the quarter. I appreciate you still have inflationary pressures and inventory rolling off the balance sheet that's impacting that. Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about anything specific that happened in the quarter, given such a strong sales beat and you're talking positive pricing commentary. Just sort of reconciling in-line margins given the extent of the sales beat. Thanks so much.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah. Yeah, Danielle. Good question. I, you know, I hate to kind of be a broken record and reiterate some of the things that we did talk about. But I would tell you that, you know, you're absolutely right. We are feeling the higher product cost that came through towards the end of last year is now flowing through this quarter. Not a lot of upside is going to come from that. As I look at sort of upsides that we did see, you know, this price is an upside that certainly helped us with margin. I would also say, and I don't want to make light of it, but, you know, these improved manufacturing efficiencies and improved freight rates, although smaller, still incrementally helped us as well.

As the year goes on, as we feel, you know, the impact of those will become more significant. I think you'll see, you know, moderate improvements as the year goes on. Keep in mind, though, that, you know, mix is going to cause some fluctuation.

We do have this underlying kind of inflationary environment that is a little bit of a headwind.

Danielle Antalffy (Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Johnson with Baird.

Jeff Johnson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. two quick Mako questions here. Just Glenn first, what are the margin implications on kind of this leasing, this pickup in leasing on Mako? Is there anything good or bad that does the margin line? When these contracts convert over to a sale, let's say in six or 12 months, any margin implications then?

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah. Honestly, you know, rentals have been part of our plan. As we look at sort of, you know, how we're attacking the market, we're focused on placements. To Jason's point, if customers prefer rentals or if they are less inclined to put the upfront money forward just because maybe competitors are placing products for free or things like that, you know, we're more than willing to spread out this purchase price over, you know, any period of time that they're interested in. I mean, oftentimes, these rentals convert within a one year or two year to a purchase, and then we'll gain back the purchase price. I would tell you that, in the context of our entire sales portfolio, it's just not a material number in terms of how it could move.

We are very happy to do rentals. Honestly, we want to just increase the Mako footprint.

Jeff Johnson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

All right. Fair enough. Then, you know, the discussion here on competition and if competitors are going to offer no cost rentals or whatever, no upfront cost, then you guys will and you're happy with that as well. I guess the other thing I keep hearing out in the field, and just want to cross-check with this with you, I mean, if hospitals are kind of allocating more capital towards procedural tools, things that take care of the patients that are coming back in the hospital, less towards non-revenue generating CapEx, I would assume that's another kind of thing that's impacting Mako at this point too, right?

I mean, if hospital can put more towards your power tools and your endo camera and get the rental up front, it's a good allocation for them to go that direction and get kind of the best of both worlds. I'd assume it's not just competition. There's a little bit here of just hospitals reallocating the procedural tools right now in the current cycle we're in.

Jason Beach (VP of Finance and Investor Relations)

Yeah, Jeff, it's Jason. I mean, what I would say is, to your point, there's different buckets of money that a hospital has to dip into, right? If they have operational expense, if you will, that they can use to place a Mako or something like that, and they may be a little tighter on the CapEx side, it certainly is a lever that they have. To Glenn's point, we're super happy to help them with that. It is an option for them, and again, one that we're certainly happy to partner with them on.

Jeff Johnson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jayson Bedford with Raymond James.

Jayson Bedford (Managing Director)

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I realize we're getting a little late here. I wanted to get back to the ortho strength, but maybe come at it from an international angle. The growth in the quarter was quite strong, admittedly off a lower base. Are there similar factors relative to the U.S. driving the growth, meaning a better staffing environment, backlog capture, or is there another kind of more dominant factor driving the international ortho growth?

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, I'd say it's the really the same factors. The nursing situation's gotten better. Just dealing with COVID, that did affect us in the first two months of last year in Australia, in Europe, in many of these markets. I would say that Mako is now really starting to pick up steam in many of these markets. It took a little longer than it has in the United States, but that's a contributor. Cementless is also growing pretty rapidly in certain markets around the world, some slower than others. I would say it's the same factors at play, not ASCs so much. I know in the U.K. they're looking at potentially starting to have some ASCs. It's a very small factor outside the United States.

The other two factors of really getting procedures back up and running, doing a better job dealing with nursing. There's still issues here and there, but getting those back patients or there's a patient backlog like there is here in the United States of people who've been putting off their procedures now wanting to get their procedures done. I would say it's a very similar dynamic in other parts of the world. Again, our head start in robotics, our head start in cementless does position us well, and we are extremely pleased with the performance internationally in the first quarter.

Jayson Bedford (Managing Director)

Okay. That's helpful. Maybe just a quick one for Glenn. You kind of touched on this earlier, pricing, it was what, a 70 basis point good guy in 1Q. The annual guidance calls for relatively neutral pricing for the year. Is it primarily a mix dynamic acting as the biggest potential weight on price over the next few quarters? I'm just kind of wondering what would pressure the price over the next three quarters.

Glenn Boehnlein (VP and CFO)

Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, mix is one factor. I think some of the other things are, you know, these pricing programs are going to anniversary in Q3 when we kick them off. year-over-year, it just won't show up as a big a difference. The other thing I would say is on this, you know, product super cycle, those products are launched, they're not included in the pricing calculation because they're next-gen models of the previous old models, and we really only compare like-for-like. That's a little bit of a factor that honestly will help us on the top line because those products generally go out at much higher prices than the predicate product.

I think, you know, if you take all that together, we just believe right now that we anticipate landing prices neutral for the full year, which honestly we'll still take as a win.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our last question comes from Kyle Rose with Canaccord.

Kyle Rose (Managing Director, Medical Technology)

Great. Thank you for taking the questions and squeezing me in here. Just wanted to ask overall on the capital side, I mean, obviously you've talked about the capital super cycles that you have. I was wondering if you could, you know, compare and contrast, you know, some of the, you know, maybe, you know, new build-out demand versus, you know, replacement demand. I think if I remember correctly, Kevin, last year, you know, there were staffing shortages on things like the construction side of things. Just if you could help us understand what the new build-out demand looks like, and then overall, split between small and large capital would be very helpful. Thank you.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Sure. Most of our demand comes from replacement, certainly on small capital by far. On large capital, it does tilt quite a bit more towards construction. There are still a lot of construction activities that are still underway. Some of them got delayed, because they just couldn't get supplies because they had staffing challenges, so there was a bit of push in some cases. We have a really healthy order book, whether it's Mako, whether it's beds, whether it's our booms and lights, pretty healthy order book. And those businesses have been performing very well. Those tend to be. We have a forward look for about six months. Right now we're seeing pretty healthy demand, across all of our small capital as well as large capital businesses.

We'll see how that plays out in the future. At least we have pretty good visibility, at least for the next six months, that things are good and we're gonna expect continued strong performance in all of our capital businesses.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, I will now turn the call back over to Kevin Lobo for any additional or closing remarks.

Kevin Lobo (Chair and CEO)

Thank you all for joining our call. As you can see, we had a very strong first quarter. We've raised our guidance, and we look forward to sharing our Q2 results with you in August. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.