Stryker Corp. (NYSE:SYK) may be forecasting double digit top line growth for 2011, thanks to the seven acquisitions the company has made in the last two years, but that doesn’t mean the Kalamazoo, Mich., orthopedic giant isn’t a little apprehensive about one of its bread and butter businesses.
Although the company doesn’t break out guidance into individual divisions Katherine Owen, VP of strategy for Stryker, didn’t sound overly bullish on the reconstruction market for hips and knees.
“Its very clear the macro environment remains challenged,” she said at an investors conference in Boston. “The irony is that I’ve never felt better about our hip and knee lineup, but I’ve never felt more concerned about the macro challenges and when that recovers.”
While Owen was confident that the market would recover, simply because patients cannot permanently endure the intense pain of a hip or knee deteriorating from arthritis, she said no one knows when the “tipping point” will come in a market that has been under pressure for more than a year now.
“There’s no assumption of when a bounce will come,” she said.”The economy is the leading indicator for the hip and knee market.”
The lone bit of glum news didn’t defer Owen’s overall positive message, however. She said the company is expecting 11 to 13 percent top line growth during 2011 and while more than half of that will come from a flurry of acquisitions the company has made since the end of 2009, organic growth in product sales will be somewhere in the 5 to 7 percent range.
She added that the company will continue to actively hunt for tuck-in acquisitions that Stryker can integrate into its current core product offering, while eschewing the urge to make big, bold moves that bring the company into new markets or new technology.
