I don't even know where to start. I'm gonna start off big picture, which is always the best place to think about this. Tell me what you're seeing in the market.
Yeah, great.
I mean, this year we entered the market or entered the year worried about everything. We were worried about the impact of the ACA. We're worried about how to think about CapEx, given the impact of the ACA. I've added to my long list of worries, the weather. I m ean, that always impacts procedures, and the such. I'd love to get your sort of mile-high view to get us started.
Great. First of all, thank you so much for the invitation to the conference. To those in the room, thank you so much for joining us. I think this is our third year since the spin-off. We've been here every year. We really appreciate your interest and support of our company.
Thank you.
Listen, there's a lot going on in the marketplace for sure, but from our standpoint, really focused on executing in this dynamic environment. What does this mean? This means, you know, driving commercial excellence to generate orders growth, to secure revenue growth. This means real focus on margin enhancements, and driving productivity initiatives. Also means an incredible focus on innovation. Because we believe all of these things will serve us no matter what the environment looks like. As we think about, you know, turning the page from last year, really pleased with what we were able to do in 2025 to set us up for 2026. We delivered 5% on a full year basis, orders growth. Organically, we delivered revenue growth of 3.5% on an organic basis.
All of those things setting us up for success in 2026. I think very prominently, we've made great progress on innovation. We highlighted much of that at RSNA. I think, you know, you can look at the news every day and see lots of different things, but as far as our focus, continued execution, and demonstrating that, I think that's really what we've been able to do.
It, it's interesting because every RSNA, the GE HealthCare presence, since the spin, seems to percolate up just a little bit, and you had a number of products that were being showcased there. I think the one that got our attention was Photonova Spectra and expectations for photon counting. GE HealthCare, first of all, I'd love to get your thoughts on the timing of bringing this product to market, and then I have a few follow-ups.
Yeah, I think from our standpoint, you know, filing in place, we'll expect approval at some point this year. We'll get some orders this year, the real revenue impact starts to occur in 2027. It's interesting because I've talked about, you know, the growth rate this year in terms of sales is very much triggered by the commercial performance that we put in place last year. What happens in 2027 is that starts to benefit from this whole set of product launches that we have in place. It's a really interesting multi-year story that we're putting together here. You know, Photonova, as an example, not a material impact to sales this year, but starts to come into play next year.
Same story with whole body PET.
When you think about the sales cycle, I'm gonna make this up, you can correct me. You get FDA approval in August, right? Are you taking orders now, and you take orders August 19th? Again, making that up.
Yeah.
How do you think about that?
Once you have approval, you start taking orders. Remember, it takes time because you start to introduce your customers to the product. They really want to understand it well. You know, it takes a few months before you're generating orders from new products in general, and then it's months after that to get sales. That's why, you know, from our standpoint, it's a multi-year story that we have in place. Now, interestingly, the answer to the question does depend on the business, because where we've seen more immediate impact, and you see it in our numbers, we're pleased today to have Phil Rackliffe, who runs our AVS business with us, and, you know, so excited with the performance in that business over the last several quarters. That is very much benefiting from the near-term impact from innovation.
It's a shorter sales cycle in that area. It does depend on the business, but in the case of some of the imaging areas that you referenced, it is a little bit of a longer lead time item. Part of that, too, comes down to, listen, if you're putting a new CT machine in place, room design becomes a question. It's not on wheels, so we have to design it into the hospital, and that just takes extra time.
From a competitive standpoint, I mean, how do I think about this versus your competition? How do I think about this maybe cannibalizing other CT products which you currently have?
I think from our standpoint, this is really a new segment for us, so the cannibalization risk is not high. What we're very excited about is, over the last five years, we have invested significantly in R&D. R&D levels have advanced and grown quite substantially, and it's important to think about it in terms of total innovation investment, that which sits in R&D, but then there's also some in cost of goods. We've escalated that dramatically over the last several years, really with the goal of parity or better with a product portfolio relative to our peers. We're so close to that, and, you know, once we've launched these products, we feel we're in an outstanding competitive position. We're starting to see that or we're starting to see wins in some of the areas that we've launched already.
We'll continue that as we go forward.
There's a whole long list of products that we talk about, and I think Wall Street, can't speak of all Wall Street. We've become very focused on two, photon counting and Flyrcado, but there's a whole bunch of others that you unveiled at RSNA, and we've been talking about. I'm gonna throw out a couple, but if I'm missing something out, please jump in and be like: "Hey, we don't think that you're paying enough attention over here." The first one I'm gonna throw out is Omni Total Body PET/CT and StarGuide SPECT/CT.
Yeah.
Those are launching outside of the United States. There's a game plan to bring it into the United States.
Those are great products. Here's the thing. We're a leader in imaging today, and yet we don't have a total body PET offering. It's an important market, for diagnostics, really, really important, and we don't participate today.
How large do you think it is?
We haven't said the size of the market, you know, you can do the work, and it's a meaningful opportunity for us. Here we go. We're gonna launch a product. We'll start to participate in this space that we have not participat ed in to date.
Mm-hmm.
A total blue ocean for us, not cannibalistic and, you know, brings us to parity. We'll have a great offering, actually. Really excited about the offering that we have. Those are a couple of good products, but, you know, in our area of and in AVS, a whole fleet of products coming, and by the way, we're winning today. Maybe we turn it to Phil, and let's hear what he has to say about it. Because by the way, the interesting thing, and I think we should highlight this during our discussion today, we announced a press release, a collaboration with UCSF.
Yep.
Let's put a pin in that and come back to that later.
You got it.
Yesterday, we announced approval of a new product, which is another one in a stream of AVS products, which we're incredibly excited about.
Phil, you're up.
Yeah, well, you know, thank you, Jay. You know, it all starts with intentional innovation and really getting to what the customer needs, understanding those needs, and then putting those into new products and workflow solutions. You've seen three of those products actually launch in the last three months. Number one being Vivid Pioneer, so it's our premium and ultra-premium cardiovascular ultrasound machine. It is doing exceedingly well, and it's beating our internal models. We're coming out there with a greater price at a lower cost of goods. That continues. One of the key innovations we have is around interventional cardiology and diagnostic cardiology with that product. The second being Allia Moveo. Allia Moveo, I was just at the first install, at Baylor St. Luke's, two days ago, watching that product in action, a product very much designed around the patient to really free up the room, to allow the clinician to treat that patient in the best optimal way.
The third one, this morning, yesterday morning, actually, was LOGIQ R5. LOGIQ R5 is a software suite that can be added to new products but also existing products. Just one factoid, you can be able to provide an ultrasound procedure in 60% less time with 80% less strokes, keystrokes. When you think about the issue we're trying to solve in healthcare right now, it's this: procedures still continue to go up, access is still poor, but the sonographers and the clinicians being able to perform those is going the wrong way. That's where we come in.
That's where we come in with AI solutions that are very intuitive, to take strokes out, to take time out, in order enabling a hospital to actually see more patients. That's just three of them. There's also three to four additional material ones in the back half of 2026.
I'm gonna ask the same question.
Mm-hmm.
When you launch these products, it has a shorter timeframe to when you actually start to see the revenue.
Yes
W alk us through that. Part of what I'm really trying to get at is we're gonna get to the finances.
Yeah.
How do we think about the quarters throughout the year, and how do we think about the jumping-off point?
There's, right, two realms of products that Jay was talking about. Number one is more of a capital-intensive product that's gonna take room construction and build out. That can be six months, that can be 18 months. It depends on the facility, HVAC requirements, right certifications, and all the like. There's some timeline to that. Other products, like ultrasound, literally, I could take a PO today, and then based on our lead times, have that product developed within the next week or two. It really depends on the product category in which we're talking about. Majority of products within AVS are more of what we call flow business. You can take an order the previous quarter, and you can fulfill it the next. Other products will take a little bit longer. That's how we think about the businesses internally.
So-
Phil was talking about some of the newer products, but his team has also introduced a lot of new products over the last year. Those are also some of the things that are going to help us drive 2026 growth, along with PDx and some of the other businesses.
A lot to talk about.
Yeah.
Of all of these products, because we're all gonna leave here and do some more homework, what do you think we're missing? What are the ones that you're like, "This is the top product," or two or three, I don't care, that we really need to be focusing on?
I think most folks have tuned into quite a few, and they've done it in the right way. I think photon counting is a big deal. I think whole body PET is a big deal. I think some of the ones that Phil referenced are also important. Flyrcado is great. Here's the thing that I think is really important. We talk about Phil used the words intentional innovation, thoughtful innovation. What we are really trying to do is help our customers solve problems in better ways. When you couple that with smart innovation, it leads to a partnership that is a little bit different than what we've seen in the past. We always talk about the Sutter deal that we did last year, and we've done a number of important collaborations in that regard.
We just today announced a collaboration with UCSF, one of the premier healthcare institutions in the world. Proud of that collaboration and that partnership. It's a long-standing arrangement that we've had in place, but now this is a new 10-year deal. If you look at the press release, they talk about wanting to enhance how they provide care in efficient ways to their customers. We talk specifically about things like remote imaging opportunities, we talk about workforce education, we talk about enhancements to MR and how they do MR. All of those things are supported through innovation. Now we're thinking about customer-backed innovation, and then how can we monetize and partner it? If I think about what people might be missing, everybody understands the linear dimensions of what we're going after.
When you put it all together in a thoughtful way, and you couple it with a world-class commercial organization, you couple it with a world-class service organization and products that work incredibly well together, that's where it all comes together into a model that works on a sustainable basis, and you see Exhibit A this morning.
I usually end these chats by asking, what do you think the street is missing? I think what I'm hearing you say, that we may be missing, is that it's not this product or this product or this product. It's the collective and the partnership that you're building with each of the healthcare delivery institutions.
I think that's right. I think everybody does a good job of saying, "Okay, I've got the nine products, and here's what I can anticipate with respect to each." When you put all of those together with a customer-backed mentality. Remember, we started years ago, what we call our worldwide product planning process, and it's very much part of this Heartbeat business system that we've put in place.
Yep.
And the reality is, it ensures that you're getting the customer input into all aspects of your development process, and you're prioritizing products based on customer impact. I think it's something that, you know, we believe that it's gonna serve us incredibly well as we look to the future, and it's starting to pay off now.
When you think about three years since your IPO, how has this view or global look, I'm not very sure what the right phrase is, changed, and how has it evolved?
The level of sophistication in terms of our product planning process has stepped up every single year. You know, the first time you do it, do you have consistent financials across every single one of the assets that you're looking at? You don't. Everybody's using different models, they're interested. One of the things we said is we need to migrate down a path of consistent financials, all housed in one system. For us, we have to be able to make trade-offs that are intelligent across our businesses. That's just one small example, how we gather customer input. We have to have a consistent way of doing that. All of these things have enhanced. I think the biggest change, we've always had this commercial mindset.
We've always had this idea that we're gonna be the best partner to our customers at the forefront. What we now have is a pipeline that's supportive of that, and products on the market that are very supportive of that.
Yeah.
I think that's.
I would just add, the robustness of our portfolio across modalities enables us to take a different approach to customers around care areas. This is really important. You heard Pete talk about our D3 strategy, taking our devices plus digital in a particular disease state. When you look across disease states like cardiovascular, like oncology, like neurology, we can begin to meet customers with really what is their biggest pain point across the whole continuum of that disease state, not modality by modality. We're running horizontal, along with being as good as we can be in the modality and providing solutions that enable that.
How has artificial intelligence and digital and all the buzzwords changed this viewpoint?
For us, we've been using AI, selling AI-related products for years.
Yeah.
I think, you know, in fact, large language models have taken-- you know, there's so much interest in that today, and there's real opportunity there. If you think about, like, the original uses of AI, it's really about image identification, image enhancements, and we've been all over this. One of the most prominent examples of that is our AIR Recon DL product. This basically is a product that attaches to our MR devices, and it allows for faster images, it reduces image time, and it enhances image quality. We're selling it on all of our new magnets. Many of our old magnets, we're also selling this as an add-on feature.
It's a big deal because if you think about radiology departments today, in many instances, they're constrained, the devices are constrained, trying to get an MRI or a cardiac MR, any kind of MRI scheduled, in many hospital systems takes quite a bit of time due to the constraints. Well, if you can alleviate that using AI, it's a big deal. That's one example. Across our portfolio, whether it be in our new ultrasound devices, we're incorporating AI to simplify workflow and reduce amount of time. You know, across the portfolio, we're seeing real opportunities here. In some instances, we price separately. In some instances, it's embedded in the price of the product, allowing for new products to come at a real premium to existing products.
Make no mistake, you know, we've been at this AI game for a long time. We have over 100 AI-enabled, FDA-approved devices on the market. I believe that's leading the industry, and so we're gonna continue to invest in this and drive this going forward.
You have AI-approved or AI-enabled products, but you also have software as a service that runs through your business.
We do.
Have you shared recently what that is?
Well, listen, we've said software as a service, inclusive of all of our digital, which is a subset of all of our digital, we said at the Investor Day was $1.2 billion growing to $1.8 billion in the coming years. We feel very good about that opportunity, our opportunity to differentiate through that, and we'll continue to drive that.
Okay. Switching just a little bit, pharmaceutical diagnostics, in some ways get some of the sunshine because it's Flyrcado, Flyrcado all day long, but there's a lot of products that are in there.
Right.
It's, you know, when I take a look at the numbers, every time you deliver them, it's very strong growth. If you could just sort of back up and talk about all the bits and pieces that are in there and what we should be focusing on.
Yeah. I mean, this is a direct function of imaging volumes. In many instances, if you're getting a CT, you're using a contrast agent of some kind. If you're getting an MRI, you're using gadolinium or some variant of that. All of that is about enhancing the quality of images. Now, Flyrcado is a great example, and it's kind of unique in terms of incredible enhancements to the image. Across the portfolio, if you're getting imaging done, more often than not, your doctor will prescribe, the radiologist will prescribe, using an imaging agent. We have benefited from that. We're a consistent supplier, we're a world-class partner, and the result of that. We've seen some pricing benefits.
The result of all of that is this business has been growing extremely well, for years, and we do believe that the growth will continue at a pace faster than the rest of our company, you know, as we, as we look out over the long-range plan. Now, we do have some unique elements in place to support. Vizamyl is a nice product that we have. We've talked about that in the past, used for Alzheimer's, and, you know, represents a great opportunity.
Has that gained the traction that you expected it to?
Yeah, it's moving along well, you know.
Qualitatively?
You know, here's the interesting thing. One of the things that we're moving away from a little bit.
Okay
... like, we have so many products that we're launching. Really, it's a fleet of new products. We're not going to report out on the sales related to each one.
Okay.
As it relates to Flyrcado, you know, we gave a data point just because I know it's so important to investors in terms of how that's progressing. You know, we'll periodically share some information in the first year of launch on Flyrcado, but our strong bias, given competitive dynamics and all sorts of things, is, like, let's look at the PDx business in total and see how you feel about that. You know, in our case, we feel great about what PDx is doing, and Vizamyl and Flyrcado are all subsets of that.
What are some of the other subsets that continue that double-digit growth?
Well, the you know, traditional contrast agents are just, you know, outstanding contributor to that, and something that, you know, from our standpoint, radiology departments, it's necessary to have these products in place. As far as innovative new products, we have a few more.
Mm
... in the pipeline that could be very interesting, but let's see.
Okay. You're smiling over there. You want to add something, Phil?
No, I think Jay covered it well. I mean, there's a lot of new AI innovations. You think about what we just talked about, which is modality by modality, we have excellent products. The real beauty in having those excellent products is now you can run horizontally, back to that point, where let's say you get a very early CT or an MR scan, I can tell you with a propensity score, what it may be, the susceptibility of that spot or tumor, and then actually be able to tell you what intervention you may want to use. Is it better treated with medicine or via an interventional procedure? There's value in having that and running a data stream across it.
That is helpful, but it made me start thinking in a different direction. When we think about the competitive landscape, do all the bits and pieces that GE HealthCare is now offering, how does that line up to your competitors? Given your, you know, vertical or horizontal look across the board, how does that change that?
I think you'd look across the core technologies being kind of MR, X-ray, MR, CT, ultrasound broadly, and then interventional. We have a very strong portfolio. You can look at the relative strength of that vis-à-vis others. There's public data available. What I'll say is that in ultrasound in particular, because I'll speak for ABUS, we're market share leaders. Within ultrasound, there's really four or five different subsegments of that, whether that be cardiovascular, women's health, general imaging, point of care is a large growth driver. Being able to take those assets, put those together, puts us in a good competitive position.
Are there areas specifically in ABUS that you're missing, but I'm also going to ask for the broader company, where you're like: If only we could get into this visualization area, then we would be set?
As we indicated back at Investor Day, a couple of years back, we gave a pipeline of products that were coming, so there were some gaps. We are addressing those gaps, and we feel confident those dates are achievable.
Okay, same question for you, Jay.
Yeah, across the portfolio, I think we feel incredible. Well, first of all, we feel very good about the entire offering that we bring to bear, and that's inclusive of PDx. I think it's a really relevant part of the portfolio.
Yeah.
Increasingly, as these imaging agents get more advanced, you know, how they interact with device and how you sort of sell the whole package gets very interesting. To Phil's point, as we launch many of these new products, we do have some gaps today. As we launch these new products, you know, we close to parity or, you know, or in many cases, surpass, and we feel great about, you know, getting those to market and what that does competitively.
You know where I'm going with this. I'm going with, to the concept of M&A, and the company has been active in M&A since the spin-out, but I'm curious where you're currently thinking.
Yeah, M&A, so, we've been active in M&A, and we've done a number of deals over the years. What I would say is, all of the deals we've done are very tightly related to our strategy.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they' re all, you know, sort of revenue accretive to the bottom line in the near term, with robust ROIs. For us, you know, we have fairly stringent financial guidelines that we look at. We look at this question of strategy, I'm really pleased, 'cause at the end of the day, you know, you can say whatever you want about M&A, if you look at our body of work, it really does match up to that nicely. Intelerad was a clear gap in our product portfolio, right? Imaging archiving is really important, for us to have now this software offering that serves as a beachhead for further AI offerings to our customers is tremendous, and it's a tremendous enhancement.
We believe that there's many different aspects of synergies that we're gonna be able to get after with respect to this. We'll be able to accelerate the growth from the double, you know, low double digits that it is today, and it's gonna be accretive from an EBIT standpoint. It's a wonderful deal. It's a great example. You know, if you look at all the other deals we've done, Caption Health, many of Phil's products today incorporate Caption Health, which accelerates image capture and makes it simpler for people to access. You know, we did a deal with Intelligent Ultrasound, which automates the maternal fetal exam. We did MIM, which is a great, a great offering for radiation oncology workflow, allows us to win in that space.
All of the deals we've done, really strategically related to what we do, very attractive economics. We'll continue to deploy capital that way. I think it's a great thing for us to get after.
In terms of size, should we think of similar-size acquisitions?
We never rule out anything, but I would say, by and large, you know, the deals that you've done, are emblematic of what the pipeline looks like. You know, could there be a larger deal? Perhaps. The likelihood is we continue to do, you know, these kinds of deals that we've put in place.
I want to talk a little bit about the financial guidance that you gave for the year. It was for 3%-4% organic growth, having completed 3.5% growth, organic in 2025. Why is 3%-4% the right number?
3%-4% is the right number. First of all, very pleased with the closeout of last year. Remember, 'cause we were expecting, you know, 3%.
Mm-hmm.
We ended up north of that, which was great, and it was a testament to actually some of Phil's business doing really well, our commercial efforts in the U.S. and international.
We have that on tape, Phil.
Yeah. Yeah, actually, can we delete that part? Really solid close out to the year, so that was great.
Mm-hmm.
As we looked at this year, it's interesting because we talk a lot about these new products, yet we're not anticipating a huge impact to sales in 2026 from the new product pipeline. You'll see some in Phil's business. Flyrcado becomes more meaningful as we go through the course of the year. Generally speaking, the real benefit from our products comes in 2027. Why do we feel good about the 3%-4%? The 3%-4% is very much based on the commercial performance in 2025. The orders that we put in place last year, remember Sutter, remember 5% full-year orders growth, that starts to play in to 2026. What happens in 2026...? Because remember, our expectation is mid-single-digit growth over the midterm. Well, guess what? 3%-4% is not that.
You start to see a tick-up next year on the back of all of this great innovation that we've put in place.
You have your backlog, you have your book to build. How should we think about that rolling into revenue? You've been very clear, 2026 is sort of an order year, 2027 is a revenue year. Do they roll off on quarters? I mean, you've got a line of sight on that.
What's gonna happen is when we put together a revenue forecast, we basically look at the entire backlog, and there are shipment dates or installation dates.
Mm-hmm
... attached to that. That's 1 important input. We look at the sales funnel that we have in place, and that's another really important input to. You know, and because a lot of that will translate to sales in the current year. Based on that, we come together with a number. Interestingly, in this year's case, 2%-3% in Q1, and then you see a little bit of a ramp for the Q2-Q4. That grows faster than that, because remember, if you're 3%-4% for the year, 2%-3% for Q1, you know, the back half of the year starts to look a little bit more normal relative.
Right
... to the midterm expectation.
More mid-single digits.
Yeah. Well, that's what you start to get to if you just simply do the math...
Yeah
take out the 2%-3%. We feel great about, you know, where everything sits, the pipeline that we've put together, how this situates us for 2026, the new products accelerate.
There was a stat, new product introductions are expected to be, or innovations, drive 1%-2% of growth in the medium term.
Yes.
Medium term meaning when? 2027, 2028?
Yeah, you'll start to 2027. I mean, because remember, what we said was through 2028, new products are 1%-2% of an impact. Guess what? We've seen a little bit of that this year. We'll see a little bit of that this year, certainly, but not at that level, not at the high end of that level, until we start to get to 2027.
Do you think that the LRP that you put in place a year and a half ago still holds?
Yeah, I think there's, I mean, we feel good about the LRP we've put in place. We've said, you know, mid-single-digit growth. We said high teens to 20%+ .
Mm-hmm
... in terms of margin.
Mm-hmm.
Now, getting to a 20%+ by 2028, obviously, would be very challenging. That was a dynamic that changed, but we feel good about the 17%-20%+ range over the medium term. You know, structurally, there's no barrier that prevents us from getting to those high margin levels over time. The long-range plan or the midterm plan that we've put in place, you know, is something that we're working hard on and gets unlocked through innovation, through the Heartbeat system that we have in place. All of those things contribute to this performance.
Let's talk about tariffs. They changed a little bit last week.
They have. A lot of moving pieces.
Okay.
By the minute, by the way, by the minute.
Oh, by all means.
There was an article in The Wall Street Journal about, you know, CEOs spending a lot of time over the weekend on tariffs, and I can confirm that we were.
Mm-hmm.
Still there's a lot of moving pieces there. IEEPA tariffs, the Supreme Court made a ruling on those.
Mm-hmm.
That was good news. very quickly thereafter, we added a 15% tariff, in, you know, that was offsetting 122-.
Mm-hmm
... that was offsetting. The 301 and the 232 tariffs remain as is.
Okay.
From our standpoint, how does this shake out? Well, guess what? There, you know, there is a meaningful offset to the upside. There was an upside created by IEEPA rollback-
Mm-hmm
... but it's offset, generally speaking, by the inclusion of these new tariffs that we have in place. At the end of the day, if these tariffs are in place for a full year, we may end up being in a similar place to where we currently sit. Here's what I will tell you, though. One of the things that, you know, I'm very proud of is all of the work that we've done on tariff mitigation over the last year. The fact that we were able to say, "Tariffs down this year," despite the fact that on an apples-to-apples basis, you'd expect to see a doubling, I think is a huge, huge element and a huge achievement by our team.
You know, as we look at this new tariff regime and structure that's been put in place, we'll start working very quickly. I expect to have a substantive update on this on our earnings call. At this point, we're not... You know, we expect we might be in a similar place to where we're currently at, but we watch it very carefully on the daily.
If, and there's a world where there's a more significant tariff relief than, you know, a little bit better here, a little bit worse there, do you then say, "Cool, we can invest that money," or do you let it flow through because you've done so much work on managing and mitigating tariffs?
If there is tariff relief, from our standpoint, we are intensely focused on funding R&D to a sufficient level so that we can win long term.
Okay.
We are also very focused on funding SG&A.
Okay
S o that we can win long term. We're also looking to benefit from AI on the back office and all of these different things, and we are. Our cost profile, you know, if there's a tariff windfall at some point, it's not like we're gonna say, "Oh, there's all these things that were not funded that should be funded as a result.
Okay.
You know, we would expect that to come through, but, you know, as we sit here today, we have more work to do, but I don't see a huge benefit from IEEPA offset by the new tariffs that have been put in place.
Okay. Research and development was ticking up as a percentage of revenue in the early days of the spin, and then a little bit less so in the more recent quarters, given revenue is lower, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. How do we think about R&D investments, particularly in light of what you just finished saying?
Yeah. We'll continue to invest. Now, it's interesting because one of the phenomena that's happened is, and it was really pronounced in 2025, we'll see it a little bit in 2026-
Mm-hmm
... which is, there are certain costs related to innovation that sit in costs of goods.
Hmm.
As products move closer to launch, and they've passed a feasibility assessment...
Mm-hmm
... the finalization, those product costs, sits not in R&D, but moves to the cost of goods line. That's why we've talked more, you know, in some cases, and we've quantified, you should look a little bit more at this innovation investment concept versus a simple R&D line.
Yep.
By the way, some of our near competitors, I believe, based on the accounting standards they use, have all of that bundled in an R&D line. We feel great about the fact that we've been able to increase R&D investment so much over the years. 2025, you saw an increase in total investment despite a decrease in the R&D line. We'll continue to invest in R&D and ensure that we're funding not only this current plate, but remember, we have to keep in mind that in 2027, 2028, and 2029, we wanna have a whole new set of products that we're talking about.
Smart.
We'll continue to invest in R&D.
Okay, the move from R&D into gross margin, maybe shifting that view a bit.
Yeah.
China, was a benefit, then was a headwind. Not sure what to label it right now. how what's the state of the union there?
Yeah, there is some cause for optimism. We're pleased with what Will has done in terms of reestablishing a commercial organization, really revamping, and, you know, the partnerships that we have in place, government affairs, all of those aspects, he brings a great lens to that market. He's a world-class leader, and somebody who can, you know, really drive commercial excellence throughout that organization. We also saw, you know, last year we won some tenders. Some of those tenders will play through in terms of this year. We've seen some encouraging signs with respect to VBP. All of those things are going okay.
Okay.
This has been a really volatile market for us. You know, we're budging China this year.
Down to single digits?
We haven't said, and part of the reason we haven't said is because, you know, China's approximately 10% of our sales.
Yeah.
The U.S. is far more significant. We're not giving guidance on the U.S., we're not really giving guidance on China, other than to say, broadly speaking, China down. I think that, you know, could this recover at some point? You know, let's see. Let's see how it goes, we don't really want to count on, you know, China being this sort of buoyant market with respect to our numbers. We'll watch it very carefully, and see how it progresses.
Is there a world or a time frame where you think it won't be a headwind, it won't be China down?
I do. I do think that, because at the end of the day, you know, there is a huge unmet need in China.
Yeah.
I believe that at some point, China will be, you know, perhaps the largest market in the largest healthcare market in the world. The question is when? I think that this will be a contributor, again, we're not counting on it this year.
How much more are you seeing local manufacturers there?
Oh, well, I mean, listen, there are formidable competitors in China. United Imaging, Mindray, really good competitors, and there's a whole suite of other companies as well that we're mindful of. We believe that with the partnerships, the products, the commercial go-to-market, we have opportunity to continue to participate in that market in a good way, but make no mistake, they're formidable competitors.
Phil, how do you think about the world when you start going to introduce new products? Is there a shift in your geographic approach?
I think overall, as you think about the maybe three markets, we'll take U.S., and we'll take Europe, and then we can take Asia. In particular, as we think about the U.S., continue to see strong underlying growth of medical procedures, CapEx. Really, the ability for us to deploy... You know, we talked a lot about three years ago. Over the course of the last three years, we invested $3 billion in innovation and R&D. Now we're beginning to see that and the impact of that paying off almost quarter-on-quarter. Pick the product, you highlighted two of them, but in particular, there's a whole bunch of other products that drive material sales. Now that cadence is starting to happen. We're getting the commercial moxie, and people are being able to see us as a system provider. I think U.S. continues to be strong.
Europe as well, had a very good momentum coming out of last year. Within Asia, I think, you know, you depicted it right, Jay. I think as it relates to China, we're picking our spots where we need to win. We're thinking about our cost of goods sold there and how we continue to locally source and position ourselves in a way to win. I think they're all in many ways different, but in particular, the growth continues. I mean, obviously, our overall impact of China to total business continues to get lower, but we're still growing. Well, how are we growing? Well, we're growing through growth in other markets. I think it's starting to pay off, and really like the portfolio and where we sit.
Excellent. To wrap things up, so when we're here next year, what do you think we're gonna be talking about?
It's interesting because I was reflecting back. You ask me this question every year.
I ask it every year.
Which is great.
It's easy to anticipate now.
Last year I said: Joanne, I hope we're gonna be talking about innovation-
Mm-hmm.
Its impact.
Mm-hmm.
I hope that we will have launched, or talked about a lot of stuff at our RSNA conference. That's what I said last year.
I know.
In between, we've spent a lot of time talking about tariffs and other things.
Mm-hmm.
What happens as we go to next year? My expectation is we will talk a lot about the impact of this innovation cycle, that, you know, we were able to select, successfully deliver on in 2026. In addition to that, I expect that we will have many more examples of how our Heartbeat system has helped optimize our business and driven forward, you know, excellence across all of the dimensions: safety, qual ity, delivery, cost, innovation. I'll expect we'll be talking a lot about that as well. Those are a few things. I imagine we'll be talking about tariffs. I think that will probably be on the agenda as well next year.
I think for us, hopefully overshadowing that, will be this focus on innovation and operational excellence through this lean business system we've established.
Excellent. Jay, Phil, Carolyn, thank you so much for coming.
Thank you.
Thank you.