Edwards Lifesciences saw revenues swell last quarter, after logging gains in sales of its transcatheter aortic valve replacement implants.
The company’s CEO, Michael Mussallem, partially attributed the growth to improvements in healthcare hiring across several hospital departments—not just in the operating room—as well as a rise in the total number of procedures performed following a dip during 2022’s winter holiday season.
Altogether, the company posted a 9% increase in first-quarter sales compared to last year, totaling $1.46 billion.
Specifically, higher-than-expected growth among the company’s Sapien TAVR valves was driven by large-volume centers, Mussallem said on an earnings call with investors. The minimally invasive heart procedure “requires staffing improvements for CT, [angiography], and the broader cath lab,” he added. “I think hospitals have been working at this for better than a year now, trying to get people trained and get people in.”
Healthcare staffing and nursing shortages continue to be a concern across the globe, Mussallem said, but Edwards believes the situation will continue to improve—leading the company to raise the low end of its sales guidance for the remainder of this year across all its products.
It may be a rough road. A recent survey of nurses estimated that hundreds of thousands may be planning to leave the profession in the coming years, amid increasing workloads, burnout and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. A separate McKinsey analysis last year forecasted a potential staffing shortfall between 200,000 to 450,000 in direct patient care by 2025.
But as for right now, Edwards reported global TAVR sales of $948 million during the first quarter of this year, for an 7.6% gain over the same period in 2022. In the U.S., TAVR procedures grew in the low-double digit range, according to the company, while overseas surgeries grew by about 10%.
At the same time, its surgical structural heart devices brought in $248 million, a 12.4% year-over-year boost, while critical care and patient monitoring sales topped $222 million, for a 4.6% increase. Edwards’ transcatheter therapies aimed at the heart’s mitral and tricuspid valves, meanwhile, collected $42 million, for a 53.6% gain over last year’s $27 million.
In TAVR, Edwards is pushing its new Resilia technology, which includes bovine pericardial tissue treated to make the replacement valve more resistant to calcification, where mineral deposits can grow to become a major cause of implant failure.
Its latest valve with the material, the Sapien 3 Ultra, was approved by the FDA last September. The company said it expects the tech to account for more than half of its U.S. TAVR sales by the end of this year and that Resilia will form the basis of all its new heart valve implants going forward.