Florida surgical robotics company Mako Surgical (NSDQ:MAKO) posted some rough figures for its 3rd quarter, withdrawing its 2013 earnings guidance and skipping its quarterly conference call while it navigates a $1.65 billion acquisition by Stryker (NYSE:SYK).
The company posted a 22% sink in sales and 224% greater losses during the quarter, with per-share losses 34¢ deeper than expected by analysts. The sink in sales was attributed mostly to fewer sales of Mako’s RIO Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic surgical platform, which Mako said was partially offset by a 35% increase in procedure volume, as well as a boost in service revenue.
Mako posted Q3 losses of $21.3 million, or 45¢ per shared, on sales of $22.8 million for the 3 months ended Sept. 30, 2013. That compared with losses of $6.6 million, or 15¢ per share, on sales of $29.2 million during the same period last year.
The company had previously projected that it would sell 45-48 new Rio systems in 2013 and that there would be 13,500-14,500 procedures performed, but Mako withdrew that estimate and didn’t put a new one in place. The orthopedics maker also noted that it would not hold its usual phone conference with analysts to discuss its 3rd quarter results.
Mako’s had a busy quarter, announcing in September a buyout by Stryker, which included a provision for the issuance of another roughly 4 million Mako shares, presumably to fund last month’s $2.5 million acquisition of partner Pipeline Biomedical Holdings in a cash/stock deal.
Mako, founded in 2004, pushed robotic surgery into the orthopedics space with its Rio device and technologies for knee and hip replacement surgery. The $30-per-share price Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Stryker agreed to represents an 85.5% premium over Mako’s $16.17 closing price the day before the deal was announced.
MAKO shares barely budged today, trading at a 0.4% decrease at $29.73 as of about 12:50 p.m.
