Stryker

About Stryker

Is this an operating room or Dad's workshop? Stryker's surgical products include such instruments as drills, saws, and even cement mixers. The company's Reconstructive division makes artificial hip and knee joints, trauma implants, bone cement, and other orthopedic supplies. The MedSurg Equipment segment houses microsurgery instruments, endoscopy equipment, – more... and communications and patient handling tools. Stryker's Neurotechnology and Spine unit provides rods, screws, and artificial discs for spinal surgeries, as well as coils and stents for cerebral vascular procedures. The firm's products are marketed globally to hospitals, doctors, and other health care facilities via direct sales personnel and distributors.

While Stryker operates manufacturing facilities in Asia and Europe, and markets its products in more than 100 countries, sales outside of the US make up only a third of its annual revenue. In the US, Stryker uses its own sales and marketing force, maintaining separate, dedicated sales teams for each of its core product lines. By allowing for specialization, each team can provide expertise and guidance directed specifically to customers in each of the medical specialties Stryker serves. In markets outside the US, Stryker's products are peddled through company-owned subsidiaries, as well as third-party distributors and medical device dealers. 

Beginning in 2009 Stryker set out to diversify its operations through acquisitions. Purchases have brought the company new software and manufacturing technologies and entered it into new lines of business. Its $1.5 billion acquisition of Boston Scientific's neurovascular division in 2011 added minimally invasive devices (such as coils, stents, and balloon catheters) for the treatment of cerebral conditions such as brain aneurysms and hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes. Stryker further boosted its neurovascular operations later that year when it acquired Concentric Medical, a maker of clot removal products for use in ischemic stroke procedures, for some $135 million.

Following these acquisitions, Stryker rearranged its operating structure from two divisions into three: Reconstructive, MedSurg Equipment, and Neurotechnology and Spine.

From hips to knees to spines, the company has followed the implant strategy of staying on top of the latest technology by consistently upgrading and introducing new versions of its popular brands. Leading products include the Triathlon and Scorpio knee implant systems, Simplex bone cement, the VariAx and Hoffman systems, and the Oasys spinal implant. During the lowest point in the economic recession, sales of joint implants softened as patients put off non-critical joint replacements. By 2011 demand had perked up world wide.

Expansion efforts in the orthopedic segment have largely been focused on orthobiologics. During 2011 Stryker acquired synthetic bone graft material maker Orthovita for some $304 million in cash. It also spent $150 million to purchase France's Memometal Technologies for its in hand and foot device products.

Stryker's orthopedic division has also developed biological products to grow bone and cartilage. Its OP-1, bone growth product was so successful that in 2011 the company sold the product franchise to Olympus for $60 million. It then turned its attention onto another biological product, BMP-7, which has applications in cartilage regeneration.

The MedSurg Equipment division includes surgical navigation systems, endoscopic systems, emergency medical equipment, and other medical devices. Its biggest customers are hospitals and other care providers who have to invest a decent chunk of cash in order to upgrade their surgical equipment. MedSurg felt hospital expense cuts keenly during the recession, and in response it sought diversification to increase sales. In 2010 Stryker purchased supportive surface maker (think: beds and tables) Gaymar Industries for approximately $150 million in cash. The two companies were already well-acquainted through a longstanding supply and sales agreement in the US.

Stryker was founded in 1941 by Dr. Homer Stryker; members of the Stryker family still own a minority portion of the company's stock. – less

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