Hello, everyone. I'm Ryan Weispfenning, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Medtronic. Thank you for joining us today on a Friday for our Medtronic General Manager call series. Today marks the third episode in 2021 of the series and the sixth since we initiated these in late 2019. As you know, we have a full pipeline of innovative products and ongoing launches across our businesses. With these calls, we wanna highlight these, the pipeline items and give you an opportunity to hear from and interact with our presidents and general managers who are leading these businesses. For today's event, we're pleased to feature our cranial and spinal technologies operating unit, which we call CST. This is in our neuroscience portfolio.
I'm going to invite each of our CST leaders to turn on their video one by one in a moment. For now, I'll introduce them by name and title. Joining me today is Brett Wall, who's the EVP and President of our neuroscience portfolio. Next is Carlton Weatherby, who's the VP and GM of Spine & Biologics. Linnea Burman, who is our VP and GM of Enabling Technologies, or Neurosurgery. And Dan Wolf, who's our VP and GM of Intelligent Data Solutions, the business unit that was created through our acquisition of Medicrea. Similar to prior calls, I have some prepared questions for our CST management team, and then we'll have plenty of time for questions from the sell side analysts that cover Medtronic.
On that note, if you're a sell-side analyst that covers Medtronic and you intend to ask a live question today, please make sure you're connected to the Zoom platform via the link in the invitation you received. If you'd like to ask a question, please click the Raise Hand button in the Participants panel. If you're using the mobile app, press the More button first and then select Raise Hand. Your lines are currently on mute, and when we call on you'll receive a request to unmute your line, which you must respond to before asking your question. Next, I wanna note that on today's call, we could make some comments that may be considered forward-looking statements, and actual results might differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement given risks and uncertainties.
Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ is contained in our periodic reports and other filings that we make with the SEC, and we do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement. I encourage you to go back and read this slide. Further, on these calls, we may also discuss certain products and indications that are in development, where our safety and effectiveness has not yet been established and which have not been approved for sale by certain regulatory agencies. Finally, we're recording today's events, and the replay will be available on our website, investorrelations.medtronic.com, shortly following the conclusion of the call. With that, let's get started. CST team, Brett, Carlton, Dan, Linnea, thank you for joining me today. I'm excited to highlight your operating unit.
It's one of our largest that we have in Medtronic with $4.3 billion of sales last fiscal year, and that makes up about 14% of total Medtronic revenue. It's also one where the competitive landscape is changing rapidly. It's driven by this combination of Enabling Technologies and more traditional spinal implants. So to kick us off, Brett, let's start at a high level with CST as a whole. Can you provide us with a broad overview of the spine market and the disease states that we address? And maybe as you do that, can you give investors and analysts a little history lesson here? I think that would be helpful. I think many remember that Medtronic for many years was a share donor in this space, but that started to change over the past couple of years.
I'm sure investors and analysts would like to understand why that was, why we're now gaining share, and what's your outlook for CST share going forward. It's probably worth touching on how we combined both our spine business and our neurosurgery capital equipment business to form CST. Turn it over to you.
Sure, Ryan. Thank you, and thank you all for joining us today here on this Friday afternoon. Before we get started, you know, today is the most important day on the Medtronic calendar all year long. We've done this now, this is the 62nd straight year that we've been able to do this, where we actually bring in patients. We, for the last two years, we've done it virtually, but this is it's a great event. All the Medtronic employees get to observe this virtually, and we're able to bring in patients who share with us their stories, and it really focuses us on what we do, why we do it, and who we do it for.
I just wanted to highlight that today and we'll do it again next year, but it's a really motivational day for us here at Medtronic. So Ryan, to answer your question and maybe to give a little background, if you look at our CST business, our Cranial & Spinal Technologies, these are businesses that were somewhat disparate and were apart for a number of years. Over the last two years, we've really brought these businesses together and called it CST or cranial and spinal technologies. So our Spine & Biologics business, you know, as you know, that's a very large market, you know, approaching $9 billion-$10 billion today with mid-single digit growth. We have a very significant presence in that particular business there today.
Carlton Weatherby, who you'll be hearing from later today, is our Vice President and General Manager in this particular business. Enabling Technologies. This was a business that we actually had separated. In a previous version of Medtronic, prior to myself taking the neurosciences role, I had this business reporting to me, but it was really separate from spine. One of the things two years ago that we did was put this business back together, put it into spine because of the, you know, tremendous opportunity to leverage all of this technology together with our implant portfolio. That is a market that is approaching $4 billion. It's growing at about 6% a year, and we have a very strong world-leading portfolio. This entire field.
Intelligent Data Solutions. This is Enabling Technologies, by the way, headed up by Linnea Burman, who has been at Medtronic in a number of roles and a number of leadership roles across the enterprise. Linnea is heading this up for us. Our Intelligent Data Solutions business was formed when we acquired Medicrea about 13 months ago. This is really an interesting new area for us that allows us to provide artificial intelligence software surgical planning within spine and actually utilize that to create plans for physicians to utilize in spine. Then to actually make personalized implants. The first implants that we're making today are actually customized rods that are designed specifically for and personally for that particular patient.
allowing us really to not only plan, execute, and then determine what happened and actually make certain that we confirm what we needed to accomplish was accomplished. That's headed up by Dan Wolf, and you'll hear from Dan a little later today. Our fourth business is our CSOT business, which is our China Cranial, Spinal and Orthopedic Technologies business. That business is really designed to be in China, and it expands our reach and our technological capabilities into this market. Overall, as Ryan said, about a $15 billion global market. We are a $4.3 billion player in that market, and it's one of the largest three operating units in all of Medtronic. This is a large business.
It's a complex business, but an exciting business with a really interesting future. That future just won't be metal implants, although we're continuing to invest where we need to there to drive some of these new implants, and Carlton will tell you about that. We've been disproportionately investing in AI, imaging, robotics, the ability to navigate and plan and place all of these advancements into our ecosystem. The ecosystem itself is really designed to be a place where you can enter in multiple points. You can enter in the planning side, you can enter while you're navigating the procedure or utilizing robotics. You can enter into a number of places and have this experience throughout the entire journey of this particular patient. With the goal being a cohesive end-to-end system.
One that allows us to have more efficient procedures, more reproducible procedures, and ultimately create much more value by having predictable and improved patient outcomes, which you know is something that is very important as we move forward. Our ability to lead in this area, we've made significant investments, so you know we have leadership positions across this entire portfolio. The goal here is to bring all of that together, have tight integration with the implants, our instruments, and the Enabling Technologies, and just have this technology so that it can be utilized in such a way that we get these outcomes.
Really, there's no other company that has, you know, this much of an installed base, this much of a common system, this much of a system that's able to work together in this way. With those investments, we've seen a change. Ryan called it out. You know, if I go back a number of years, we were a pretty routine share donor. You know, that's just a challenging business, but that's not something that, you know, we could tolerate or want to tolerate for a very long time. By putting these technologies together, we've seen over time we've been battling our way back.
We stopped being a share donor, you know, got ourselves into a neutral position, and now we've been starting to take share back in this particular field. That's where we really see ourselves playing. We're very well positioned to do that. Our technology across the board is in many cases the top technology in the world. You know, it ranges all the way from our powered surgical instruments through all the other things we just talked about. The goal here is to really continue to invest where appropriate, to continue to integrate the systems. We've had year-over-year share gains for the last three quarters here now, you know, worldwide in our spine business. We expect to...
We have high expectations for this business to continue to see that, you know, over the next, as we progress over the next quarters. You know, we've made a lot of changes. We've brought four of these businesses together, which is really critical for us, and the plans that we have as we move forward to get tight integration, to get them working together and to actually make the trade-offs and make the investment trade-offs and the capital allocation trade-offs to, you know, to continue growing in this business. The alignment is key. The ability to work together is key. Having this ecosystem, we're really just at the beginning of what I think is gonna be a pretty interesting book here and a good read.
You know, Ryan, that's really a synopsis of where we've been and where we are, and I think kind of how we see the world going forward.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for laying that foundation, Brett, and outlining, you know, these competitive benefits that we see in the Medtronic CST ecosystem. You know, I often get questions, Brett, about some of the trends that we're seeing in this market. It's an important market, and investors and analysts, they'll often ask questions like what we're seeing in the move to ASCs, for example, or the impact of robotics and even, you know, personalized medicine and where that's going and how that could affect this market. Could you spend maybe just a few minutes giving us some of those broader market themes and those themes and how your GMs are tracking those and how CST is really set up to capitalize on those trends?
Yeah, no. Thanks for that question as well. You know, I think a couple of things. I think one, you know, robotic surgery is really kind of at a starting point today. What we've also noticed is as we get that ecosystem more capable, you know, the ability to incorporate Midas Rex, which we've done, to incorporate interbodies, you know, into the workflow, that is actually increasing the capability from what you know was initially a pedicle screw system to actually you know and more capabilities and more things. Like most technologies, you start with initial champions that you know wanna see it happen, wanna work with the team happening.
Now what we're actually starting to benefit from is, you know, more people wanna get engaged in robotics. We particularly see it with surgeons that are, you know, coming out of fellowship or just in fellowship or, you know, some new to their practice. They're interested in this. That's an exciting thing to bring to the market. You know, if we look at ASCs, you know, I think one of the things we learned during the pandemic is a number of our procedures that could be done in the ASCs, we've seen some movement there. We have technologies that we are bringing into those particular areas to take advantage of that. You know, not just in spine.
You know, we have technologies like our Aquamantys system, which can be used in other orthopedic procedures that are done in ASCs, as well as a number of other technologies such as, you know, outside of this particular space in SCS and pelvic health. You know, spinal cord stimulation and pelvic health that are well adapted to that area. We're looking at not only the technologies that we have, but other potential spine procedures that would be done there and having the right technologies there. So, you know, we're well positioned to be part of that, to assist patients in that, to assist physicians in that as we move forward.
You know, I think the trends in the business. You know, I think for everybody, this has been kind of a moving target to try to get your arms around as we go through the different waves of COVID. Trying to understand, you know, as we just got through the Delta variant, you know, is the Delta variant maybe coming back a little bit? Omicron variant, you know, how that's looking. You know, it appears that Omicron is, you know, maybe highly transmissible, but perhaps, and particularly if you're vaccinated, maybe not as serious as the other variants would be there. We really haven't seen exactly what that's gonna look like yet.
The main thing that we consider is, are ICU beds going to be utilized or taken advantage of with the new variant that comes out? If it's more so, that can impact procedures. The thing about it is that impacts everybody, Ryan. You know, that's not you know, that might be out of our control, but every other competitor is playing in that same field, in that same game. What I look at there is you know, what technologies do we have that you know, can assist patients and physicians you know, during this time? Certainly you know, how do we you know, maintain or even grow our share during these times?
Because we control the things we execute, and as long as everyone's dealing with that, we will manage through that accordingly. That's one of the reasons I think a few weeks ago at our earnings call, we, you know, on the guidance side, you know, I think we were probably on the side of caution there a little bit, just trying to figure this out. The health of the business remains strong. You know, we have new implants that are coming in that are providing us significant capabilities, expandable cages that, you know, Carlton will talk about, you know, frankly, that we just didn't have before.
You know, that's an area where we have a lot of Medtronic loyal spine surgeons that had to use a competitor's product there, and we feel highly confident that we're gonna be able to you know show them our new technology, which you know we think is some of the best technology available, if not the best technology available. Loyal Medtronic physicians will come back to that. That's a dynamic that's happening right now. You know, we also think that you know a lot of the personalized medicine that we're seeing, we're seeing a bit of an acceleration there, where if you can make a perfect rod for someone. This is what this is. It's a perfect rod that's made. It's really extraordinary when you see it.
It drops into place perfectly and assists with the perfect correction. It's personalized for that patient. There's no one, no other rod like that in the world because there's no other person like that in the world. It's made perfectly for them. We're seeing a move towards that. With the technology that we have, this is the first in a series of personalized technologies that we can create. One of the things Dan Wolf will talk about with the acquisition of Medicrea and our, you know, installation of not only a facility in Europe that does this, but now we're putting a facility into the United States that will be doing this for the U.S. market.
This, you know, kind of AI-driven solution will become, you know, more ubiquitous here as we move forward. You know, I would say at the end of it, we're focusing our investments, focusing our ecosystem and expanding our portfolio of planning tools, you know, preoperative as well as intraoperative tools to use, and proprietary algorithms to, you know, just have better spine surgery, more approachable spine surgery, better outcomes, incorporating that with robotic-assisted surgery and that ecosystem, and that system becomes more capable with the image-specific implants. When you line all that up, it is a powerful portfolio of technologies that are all designed to make everything better.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks, Brett. That's very helpful. You know, before I go to the GMs, I wanna make sure you have a chance to talk about their new boss. I think most people probably saw that last month we put out a press release, stating that we'd hired Skip Kiil to become the new president of CST, and he'll start in the new role, I think it's about two and a half weeks.
Yeah.
Brett, what does Skip bring to the role, and why is he the right person to lead our CST business at this point in time?
Well, you know, it's kind of interesting because when you know, first a couple of things. You know, we have 20 operating unit jobs across Medtronic, and then a few of these jobs have integrated general managers like this one with Carlton and Dan and Eugene, who's not on the call today, and Linnea. But, you know, these jobs, you know, I just think they're the best jobs in MedTech. You have the opportunity to pull these levers and go after these very specific markets and, but at the same time you have Medtronic behind you. As we fully execute the operating model, you know, it's kinda like when I ran a business and I came to the Covidien side.
What I wanted to do was focus on those customers, focus on that business, make the trade-offs, do the things that we needed to do to operate the business. That's the operating goal here. Bringing Skip on was great. You know, he ran the orthopedics business at Smith & Nephew as the named executive officer there. What I was really encouraged to see is we had a number of people that were interested in this role, both internally and externally, and really great candidates across the board. Skip brings three things to the table that I thought were really important. One, he has an understanding of technology. He's worked a long time in this space, you know, over 20 years of experience in this particular space. A deep understanding of that.
With all the technology that we're integrating, you have to appreciate that. Although not an engineer, Skip and I talked about this a lot, I think he's an enthusiast for it, which I certainly am. You know, you have to be enthusiastic about this and wanna do it. You know, I think the other thing is, someone that has significant orthopedic experience or orthopedic and spine experience. You know, these are tough markets. You know, yeah, you go into these markets, and they're tough. They're challenging. They change. It's highly dynamic. There's a lot of competitors. You have to be, you know, kind of willing to, you know, to go into that and go after that.
Third was someone who had managed a business at scale. This is a large business, so you know, the decisions you make are very impactful. You will have to live with those decisions. Those decisions have you know, large amplifying effects when you make them. Having someone who had that experience and has been through that was really important. You know, the fourth thing, which I won't mention too much, but it's really important to me, is you know, somebody who's really competitive. You know, someone who you know, wants to come in and make a difference. We talk about this a lot, you know, within you know, within this group and within this team. You know, you know, I love winning.
I hate losing more. I think, you know, that competitiveness, that edge, you know, a lot of us talk about it, about the competitiveness, the edge, the, you know, building this business back to, you know, just a good, strong growth business for us, you know, in a tough market. We're all committed to that. That being said, look, we have a terrific, you know, just a strong leadership team here. You know, the whole team I mentioned, you're gonna get to meet them here in about a minute. They just have great experience, deep backgrounds, will to win and, you know, working together, which is really important, you know. Working together to deliver this value.
You know, I think the other important thing is the team likes working together. They like each other. If you can be a happy warrior and go off and do this kind of stuff, you know, it makes it a lot more fun. It's a great team, and I couldn't be more thrilled to have this group of people at this time, you know, with us doing what we're doing today.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Brett. I'll give you a little break here, let's turn to that team.
Thanks.
We'll turn to the GMs that run this business. We'll start with Carlton Weatherby, who runs our spine and biologics business. Carlton is one of the two GMs on today's call that I actually helped to recruit to Medtronic. Carlton, I know time goes by fast, but it's been a few years since that happened. Maybe you could share with the audience today how long you've been at Medtronic, and what roles you had prior to your current role.
Hey, Ryan. First of all, it's great to see you and honored to be with this audience. Believe it or not, it's been actually more than just a few years. I'm over a decade now. I came to Medtronic in 2011 when you helped shepherd me in. At the time, I was in our corporate business development group focusing on acquisitions. While I was part of that team, I led a number of integrations as well. One of those integrations was Mazor Robotics when we pulled the trigger on that acquisition in 2018. I followed that acquisition into a role of vice president of what we call surgical synergy sales. At the time, within RTG, but you can think of it as within our CST operating unit.
In that role, I led a team across the country that was focused on the clinical support and program development of our enabling technology platforms and with a specific focus on our Mazor robot, which we'll talk a lot more about the rest of this call. Then most recently, last February, I got tapped on the shoulder and was named the general manager of our spine and biologics business. Hard to believe that it's been almost a year, Ryan. You know, some days 10 months feels like 10 days, and at points it feels like 10 years. In both cases, I'm having a blast, and I'm honored to be a part of leading this journey of transformation in spine.
Yeah. Yeah, time certainly does fly. You know, when it comes to spine implants, Carlton, can you share with us your assessment on where we fell behind in the competition? You know, Brett and I were talking about that earlier. We fell behind in terms of innovation. Maybe you can talk about some of those areas and then what we're doing to improve our competitive position now.
Yeah, Ryan, and you and Brett touched on it. I think there was clearly a tough period in Spine for us several years ago, going back about a decade, and for many reasons. I think one is that we were seen as big, as slow, as disconnected from the customer and lacking a very clear strategy over the long term of what we want to be to drive the market and improve outcomes. In many ways, if we're honest, you know, some of that was true. Our competitors were coming in aggressively and launching products at a faster rate. They were also seen as more responsive and in some ways more nimble. As a result, we lost share. Now I'm excited and proud to say that we can say that's all behind us.
It's many thanks to leaders like Brett Wall as well as Geoff Martha when he was running at the time, RTG, who began this turnaround. I think it started with what Brett touched on, bringing in a strong leadership team. With that, instilling a heightened competitive mindset and then finally having a clear strategy with a focus on accelerating our pipeline of value-added innovation. On top of that, increasing our operational execution and efficiency. Then finally having a heightened or improved level of commercial service and excellence across the field that is unmatched by our competitors. That's some of the history. You asked what we're doing about it.
I think we've been focused on innovation kind of at the front and back end of this, and we'll talk a lot about that today. That innovation being inorganic through acquisition activity that many of us are well aware of, Mazor and Titan Spine, as well as most recently Medicrea. Also we've done a lot of investing within our organic engine, revving that and taking that to a new gear and launching not just products, but platforms that we can expand upon over time, and most importantly, that are integrated across this ecosystem that we'll continue to reference. Then that's been exciting. Just this year alone, within Spine, we are launching over 20 unique products across new markets. That's a big deal, and that's organic innovation, that we're doing within the business and that we're very excited about.
Again, integrated across the ecosystem that we've been talking about as well. That's not just launching products, but launching products faster, launching them with greater impact and while maintaining this focus on, you know, product quality and patient safety at the same time, and ultimately seeing the product of share gains that Brett described earlier. That's exciting. We think we're just getting started there. You asked how we did this, one element of doing this is just driving greater focus across our teams on the innovation acceleration. Some of that is through culture and elements of how do we instill those behaviors. Some of that is streamlining processes and moving with speed and decisiveness within the business.
A part of that is we've built stronger connections and alignments across all the stakeholders within the business to take ownership of this piece of innovation. I truly think that's had an impact as well, Ryan. Then finally, one thing that I mentioned earlier was the commercial excellence and service being a really important part of our strategy here. One element or example of that is a lever we pulled around, you know, experienced hires. We've invested more in that area than we have in the past, and we're seeing the benefit or the return on that investment.
Not just leveraging the experience and relationship, but the expertise that these new team members bring in-house and their ability to own the strategy and drive the execution with credibility and confidence, and again, seeing market share gains as a result. A lot going on, Ryan, but delivering on the promise of better outcomes for more patients.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely a lot going on. Carlton, that's very interesting to hear about how our competitiveness has increased in your business and it's driving this innovation. To that point, I'm sure investors would like some specifics on the pipeline. As you've got a lot of things that are just launching. You talked about 20 products that are launching shortly. Would you mind sharing with us more information on the exciting core spine product launches that we have this fiscal year? For those that might be a little less familiar with the spine market, maybe you can talk about the conditions that those products treat, along with the market size and growth expectations.
Happy to, Ryan. Before I get to the market conditions, let me reinforce at the risk of being redundant, the importance of how we think about launching new products and technologies through this integrated ecosystem that truly is unmatched. In an ecosystem that includes spine implants, instrumentation and biologics, but also enabling technology platforms like navigation, robotics, imaging and high-speed drill, as well as AI-enabled surgical planning and clinical decision support. That truly is a differentiated offering, and we see that leading to sustainable above-market growth over time. As we think about the conditions we serve in spine, it's a wide array of pathologies, everything from degenerative disc disease to herniated discs to some form of complex deformity as well as fractures that include both tumor and trauma.
If we think about the market, as Brett said earlier, over $9 billion globally is the revenue figure for that. We break that up into two categories, our core Spine business, which makes up about $8 billion of that, and then our Biologics business, that category that makes up over $1 billion of that. Both of those segments growing mid-single digits, about 5% across both of those. We look at the market, we can double-click and think of that from a procedural perspective. We look at the market as over 800,000 total spine fusions annually in the U.S., and that U.S. figure being about a third of what we see globally.
As we look at that segment in terms of, you know, total spine fusions, the largest piece of that is our total lumbar segment. That makes up almost 500,000 procedures annually here in the U.S. and is growing at about 5%. As we look within that segment, Ryan, I'm gonna double-click again because I mentioned that we'll be focused on what are the high-growth opportunities across our business. A minimally invasive spine surgery is a really important not just trend, but growth segment within spine. And that makes up anywhere from a quarter to a third of what I call, you know, this high-growth segment of total lumbar procedures. But it's growing at a much faster clip, almost double the clip of the rest of the market at the high single-digit mark.
For that very reason, it's one of the segments that we are indexing heavily in as we think about launching products and getting to your question around, you know, what's coming. In this year, a number of our releases have been launched through the lens of what we've called our MIS+ campaign, and focused on this segment of procedures with a number of different products. I'll mention a few of them, Ryan. We don't have time to go through all 20+ that we're launching this year. But one I wanna highlight is our new Catalyst platform. This is our new titanium expandable interbody platform. And this is a segment that has been a gap for us, and a gap that's been taken advantage of by some competitors like Globus to kick in the door.
We're excited to say that we're not just closing that gap, and coming to the market at parity, but also differentiating with our technology, both from a technical and clinical perspective, but also with the integration of our ecosystem, the only navigated expandable interbody on the market, and also one that is integrated with our leading graft delivery system on the biologics side. What I mean by that is our expandable cage is also seamlessly tied into and compatible with our industry-leading StealthStation navigation system. Again, reinforcing this theme, Ryan, of an ecosystem that is separate from the pack, not just individual products or technologies that are launched, one-off. The other piece of this MIS campaign we launched was what we call our Space D access system.
Instrumentation is a really important part of these procedures, as you know. Improving the clinical workflow efficiency, both in terms of ease of use and potential time savings, is a big deal to our customers. This access system is a pedicle screw-based distraction, retraction, and compression system that does just that. During the procedure, it gives them greater visualization and greater access to maneuver around during these minimally invasive procedures. That's something we launched this year. Again, as you can imagine, it's compatible with some of the same systems I described, and specifically our industry-leading MIS screw fixation system, which is CD Horizon Solera Voyager. The last one I'll call out, Ryan, if I can, is on the biologics side.
We recently launched what we call our Accelerate Graft Delivery System, which basically is a more efficient and seamless integration of graft delivery, and at almost nine times the rate of the traditional graft delivery methods. All of this coming together as product releases in one global launch of our ecosystem focused on this high growth segment of minimally invasive spine procedures. The response has been great. We're seeing adoption, and most importantly or as importantly, we're seeing competitive conversion, as Brett said. This is getting us back in the conversation with surgeons that may have gone another direction in the past because of some of these gaps. Again, they're coming back, but also pulling in some of the elements of the ecosystem that, no one else can provide.
We're really excited about that, Ryan, and I appreciate you giving me the time to talk about that portfolio.
Yeah. Thank you, Carlton. Appreciate it, and we'll have you come back here in a little bit for Q&A. Next we'd like to move to Enabling Technologies, which is led by Linnea Burman. Linnea, maybe you could start by telling us your current areas of responsibilities, and then share with the audience how long you've been at Medtronic and the roles that you've held here at the company.
You bet, Ryan. Thanks so much. Great to be here with you and Brett and my very talented colleagues. Good afternoon, everyone. As Brett said, I'm the General Manager of Enabling Technologies, and that includes our surgical robotics, navigation, intraoperative imaging, powered instruments, our energy business, cerebrospinal fluid management, and critical care. I've been in this role for approaching two years now. I've been at Medtronic for 21 years, and during that time, I've held several roles spanning market development as well as competitive markets. I led strategic planning and communications for the Restorative Therapies Group, and I also had commercial responsibility for Latin America and Canada. I was previously General Manager of Pelvic Health and Gastric Therapies for five years, and I was U.S. Marketing Director for Pain Stim and Global Marketing Director for Targeted Drug Delivery as well.
Great. Yeah, thanks for that introduction, Linnea. So I think investors appreciate our leading market positions across your product lines that you're responsible for, you know, imaging, navigation, robotics, advanced energy, powered surgical instruments. You know, as you think about those product lines, Linnea, are you willing to share some of the enhancements that you're making to those product lines?
Sure. Yep. I think both Brett and Carlton explained the synergy of this ecosystem really, really well. Enabling Technologies are such a vital part of this ecosystem, and we're continuing to make enhancements as well as invest in next generation technology across this portfolio. We are the pioneers in this space, but that investment is really critical as we continue to lead in both spine and cranial procedures. As Brett mentioned, the Enabling Technologies market is projected to grow over 6%. Even when hospital capital budgets are constrained, as they have been over the last 18 months or so, this capital is in high demand. It's in high demand because it allows hospitals to drive higher volumes of important procedures. That has been great to see. I'll highlight a few enhancements, Ryan.
Looking back just a short time, we had a couple of launches in high speed power as well as energy. We had a recent launch of the Midas Rex MR8 platform, our high speed drill system for surgical procedures that span spine, cranial, ENT, as well as orthopedics. Then we also launched the PlasmaBlade X soft tissue dissection device, both of these in 2020, and have been well received and continue to allow us to take share from competitors. I'll shift gears and look forward just a little bit and move to navigation. Later this fiscal year, we'll be introducing a new software release for our StealthStation navigation system, and this includes new integrated tractography and enhanced usability of that platform.
We'll also be expanding the utility of our cranial robotic assisted device called Stealth AutoGuide in integrating that Midas Rex MR8 platform that I described. On the cranial side, I think we're talking a lot about spine, but want to make sure I highlight cranial as well. Navigation is really the standard of care in the United States and other developed markets around the world, and primarily for neuro-oncology applications. We continue to look for more opportunities to expand our presence in this space. We continue to innovate and enhance our offering, and it just continues to be an area with many unmet needs that will allow us to push forward and meet our mission.
It's important for investors to know that this Enabling Technologies business really benefits from a diversified revenue model of new product sales as well as capital upgrades that are driven by new features and capabilities. We also have recurring revenue from consumables and disposables that support ongoing case volumes as well as our service business.
Yeah. Thanks, Linnea. You have a lot of exciting technology in the pipeline. I know you haven't touched on it yet, but robotics. Investors I know like to hear about our Mazor robots, and maybe you could also provide an update on Mazor and expand on, you know, what gives us our competitive edge in that space and our leadership in that market. Finally, I'm sure everyone would be interested in knowing how you're thinking about the future of spinal robotics.
Yes, absolutely. As everyone here probably knows, Medtronic is really betting on robotics across the enterprise. This was a space that we were really excited to enter a few years ago as we looked out at the horizon and continue to contemplate how we can continue to transform surgery. We lead the market here with over two times the number of robots versus our nearest competitor. This is key to driving long-term adoption of this total ecosystem that we're talking about. In addition, we have seen increased sales across the spine business in accounts that use our Mazor robot. Surgeons trust Mazor, and I'm happy to share that we recently achieved a significant milestone. To date, more than 50,000 procedures have now been performed on this platform worldwide.
In addition to that milestone, this month also marks the third anniversary since we welcomed Mazor to the Medtronic family. I believe looking forward, that what we call robotic assisted surgery today will simply be called surgery someday soon. The surgeons who are adopting this platform are really shaping the future. It's our honor to partner with them, and we see a lot of others that continue to follow them in that path. Our robotic solution is really all about going beyond individual pedicle trajectory guidance to spine construct design. That's our vision for the next few years. Construct design involves placing the screws, rods, and cages so that they are one unit, optimized and customized for the patient to achieve an alignment target.
We do this by providing our comprehensive 3D planning with best in class surgical execution. We're still in the early phase of this thinking around construct design, but building on those 50,000 cases and the surgeons who are utilizing this platform to its fullest, we are really starting to see great results. At the same time, we're putting significant effort into integrating robotics with other enabling technologies. We're starting to say that data is the next enabling technologies, and so we're combining data science and visualization solutions that can help foster surgeon consensus on how to treat patients across the spine surgery space that has so many variables, and ultimately resulting in procedures that are more efficient and more reproducible.
With all of these continued advancements in the Mazor platform, we expect to deliver better experiences and outcomes in the operating room. We expect that today and as we create new possibilities for tomorrow with the CST ecosystem.
Thanks for that, Linnea. You know, it's incredible to think about where this technology can take spine surgery over the coming years. Maybe we'll turn next to Dan. Speaking, you know, of technology, Dan leads our Intelligent Data Solutions business, or as we call it, IDS. This is the business that came to Medtronic through our acquisition of Medicrea. So Dan, glad to have you here today. You're the other GM I mentioned earlier when I was talking to Carlton that I helped to recruit to Medtronic several years ago. Maybe you can share with the audience how long it's been since you started at Medtronic and what roles you've held prior to your current role.
Yeah. Thanks, Ryan, thank you so much for having me. It's good to be here with the team today. I've been at Medtronic since 2009. I've had a variety of roles across corporate development, business integrations, strategic and national account sales across the neurosciences. Had the opportunity to lead a few of our strategic initiatives across Medtronic, including the acquisitions of Medicrea, Titan Spine, Mazor, and the patient care business divestiture from Covidien a few years back. Most recently, you know, led the acquisition and integration of Medicrea, and we've exceeded expectations. It's a very exciting time to, you know, be a part of CST with our Medicrea business. As Brett mentioned earlier, upon the acquisition of Medicrea, we created a new business unit, part of CST, called Intelligent Data Solutions, or IDS.
We're continuing to exceed expectations by driving surgeon adoption of the technology platform and the legacy Medicrea implant portfolio as well.
Great. Thanks, Dan. Maybe you could start with giving us a little bit of a history on IDS, its development, and then explain to the investors and analysts that are listening today, how does that plug into the CST ecosystem? Then maybe give us an update on Medicrea and what you're looking forward to in the future with that business.
Yeah, sure. You know, look, it's been a little over one year since we welcomed Medicrea to the Medtronic family. Major milestone for us in CST on the journey to transform spine care with data. You know, our mission in IDS is to put data technology in the hands of every surgeon and patient around the world. We're just getting started, but it's, we're off to a great start. You know, we are setting the foundation for personalized spine care. Our goal is to improve patient outcomes, but also to make the life of the surgeon easier through improved workflow and efficiency in the clinic and through the OR. You know, we're really at the helm of an unprecedented time in spine care, and it's a major transformation for the industry.
We believe this creation of a new business unit really reaffirms the strategic importance of data and artificial intelligence in spine surgery and cranial care. You know, we're not only investing in these areas, we're accelerating innovation in these areas. The landscape is evolving quickly, as you heard from, you know, Brett and Carlton and Linnea. You know, we believe by investing in a few key areas, we're really gonna drive meaningful impact for patients and surgeons. One of those areas is investing in the robotics experience, really driving data and AI surgical planning integration from Medicrea with robotics. That's gonna be a major part of our growth here to come. We're also investing in larger and larger datasets, bringing those onto the platform.
As part of that, investing in stronger algorithms, so that we can treat an expanded set of pathologies across spine care. These are all really with the goal, as I said, of investing in precision of care, reducing variability, improving efficiency for surgeons across their clinical workflow. You know, we all know that data is the new currency in our everyday lives. In spine, the winners and the winning businesses are gonna be those that can harness the power of data and AI. We believe we're leading the way here and there's a significant first mover advantage in the industry.
Thanks, Dan. You know, it's exciting to hear how IDS is truly transforming spine surgery. I think investors, you know, Brett mentioned earlier, investors have heard us talk about in the past too these UNiD rods, and I'm not sure everyone knows exactly what they are. So maybe you can spend a few minutes telling us what's a UNiD rod? How are they different than a normal spine rod? And what conditions do they address? And how do they help us drive growth in CST?
Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. UNiD stands for Unique ID. The rods are actually designed for each patient pre-surgery, and they're pre-bent. They're created using our proprietary data and software platform preoperatively. The platform is called UNiD ASI or Adaptive Spine Intelligence. Our goal with this whole process, using the data and the personalized implants, is to optimally align the spine for the patient and to reduce the risk of malalignment, which is a major cause of revisions of surgery. That helps all of the healthcare stakeholders in the ecosystem. You know, we're indicated for use for many spine procedures, including scoliosis, trauma, tumors, complex degenerative disease, adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Really, you know, across the major categories of spine care.
To your question around, you know, business model, I mean, we're already seeing meaningful enablement of pull-through of our entire CST ecosystem. As I said earlier, we're exceeding expectations on that front. We're compatible and approved with all of our, you know, legacy Medtronic hardware and screw systems, so Horizon and Infinity and Voyager and Solera. That really. What that really does is it allows the surgeon to tailor their whole surgical care approach to the patient, optimize for the patient anatomy, optimize for that specific pathology they're trying to treat using all the Medtronic technologies at the table. As I said earlier, we're also working to integrate with the robotics and the Mazor and the navigation.
What that's already doing is enabling surgeons to treat on a minimally invasive basis, driving precision, driving efficiency gains, driving workflow benefits. In the process, we're transforming the entire industry together.
Great. Thanks for that, Dan. Wanna thank Carlton and Linnea as well for your insights. We'll bring Brett back on before we head to Q&A. Brett, maybe is there anything you'd like to leave us with before we turn to Q&A?
Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. Look, we're changing the game and with this pioneering ecosystem for cranial and spine surgery. We're gonna continue to lead by leveraging all the technologies and advancements in AI, as well as investing in new technologies to change the way the surgery and these procedures are performed. We have the best portfolio in the industry, a top-tier leadership team, and I'm confident we're gonna continue to win and take share.
Great. Thanks, Brett. We talk with investors all the time about our focus on accelerating our top line growth. Hopefully, the investors, analysts joining us today are taking away from this conversation our confidence in accelerating the growth of CST. As I mentioned before, it's about 14% of total Medtronic. As CST accelerates, it can have an outsized impact on overall Medtronic growth. We've probably spent enough time with the prepared remarks here, and I'm sure there's people online that would like to ask the GM and GMs and Brett some questions as well. Let's open the lines for Q&A. As we have the CST team here today, I ask that you please keep your questions focused on the CST business.
If you have questions on broader Medtronic or other businesses, you can follow up with me or anyone on my team after the call. For the sell-side analysts that would like to ask a question, again, you can select the Participants button and click on the Raise Hand. If you're using the mobile app, you have to press that More button first and then select Raise Hand. Your lines are currently on mute, and when we call upon you'll receive a request to unmute your lines, which you must respond to that before you ask your question. We're gonna try to get to as many questions as possible here before the end of the hour.
In order to do that, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and if necessary, a related follow-up. Then if you have additional questions, just go back in queue and raise your hand again, and we'll circle back time permitting. Lastly, please be advised that this Q&A session is being recorded. With that, we'll pause a moment for the hands to go up, and I will ask Carlton, Dan, Linnea to join Brett and me and have your cameras on, which looks like you do. Let's take a look here at the queue. Let's go first to Shagun Singh at RBC Capital Markets. Shagun, are you there? Shagun, are you able to hear us? Okay, maybe we'll see if she can fix her audio.
Let's for the time being, go to Matt O'Brien at Piper.
Hey, can you guys hear me okay?
You, can you hear us?
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Hello?
Hey, Ryan.
Hello?
It looks like the analysts, at least as I see them, they're fully muted here. I wonder if we just have a.
Okay.
Technological challenge.
Have our engineers check that on the analyst line here.
Hey, Ryan, can you hear me?
Matt, are you able to hear us?
I can't hear anything, no.
Yeah, we're not hearing the analyst questions.
Can you hear me?
Give us one second while we try to fix these technical difficulties.
Okay, go ahead and try now.
Okay. Matt, are you still there?
I'm still here. Can you hear me?
There. We can. All right.
Oh, cool. Okay, just real quick. Can you talk about your so there's been some estimates out there that your imaging business is around $500 million, especially on the O-arm side of things. You've got some new competition coming from Globus. How do you protect, you know, that size business, if it is that big, going forward with a kind of a three-in-one system? And then just on the Mazor side of things, I haven't heard a lot as far as new system placements or sales. Are you still trending everything as good as you had been, you know, last several quarters? And with the new indications that you're coming out with, are you seeing any kind of acceleration on the Mazor side? Thanks.
Linnea, do you wanna take that one?
Sure. I'd be happy to. Thanks for the question, Matt. On the imaging side of things, it is a very healthy market. We don't give specifics on the size of the market or the installed base, but it is the standard in intraoperative imaging for spine around the world. We have strong coverage in every region of the globe. We continue to serve both our installed base with software updates as well as upgrades. We also have a roadmap that we're really eager to execute on and deliver. I won't speak for our competitors, but I think their entry speaks to the continued headroom for growth in the imaging category, as well as our ability to serve that really important installed base that we have. On the robotic side, I'm happy to comment.
Right now, as I commented, we believe our installed base is about 2x that of our nearest competitor. We think we matched last quarter. What we're most excited about is really the healthy pipeline that we have, both in the United States and around the world. We've had several firsts in countries outside of the United States recently in this fiscal year. We have made progress in Japan, Canada. We're making progress across Europe, and we've received approval in China, which we believe will be a wonderful market for robotics. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. Let's go back to Shagun and see if we can hear her this time. Shagun, are you there? Okay, we're still having some difficulties from her line. Let's go to Matt Miksic at Credit Suisse. Matt?
Hey, everybody. Can you hear me okay?
We can.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions from and for all the detail. I had one question for Brett and one follow-up, if I could, for Linnea. Just on the market, I think everyone is fully aware of the challenges in the U.S. around staffing, in particular in the calendar Q4, this time of year, which is often sort of a busy, you know, musculoskeletal, you know, inpatient operation time of the year. Wondering if you can talk a little bit about how you expect us to sort of look back on this December where January is kind of flat or, you know, sort of uncharacteristically flat or better than that or worse than that.
I'd love to get your sense of what you're seeing so far, Brett, and then as I mentioned, one follow-up.
Hey, Matt. Thanks. I think it's two days in a row with you here, so it's good to see you again. Yeah, a couple of things. You know, if I go back and kinda turn the clock back a little bit, you know, September and October were reasonably good for us in the space, you know, especially towards the end of October. We're seeing that hospitals are finding ways to get these procedures done. Now, I think what's happening is they're paying a bit of a premium for that help, you know, either traveling nurse program or other types of program there and getting that in. We are seeing the procedures get done, and I'll have Carlton or Linnea or Dan comment on that as well.
You know, I think the challenge that we see is certainly making sure that the procedures get scheduled. We've had a couple of hotspots, but in general, I think we found that they found a way to get it done. I think you know, the issue that we constantly monitor is are the beds gonna be available for people to stay? You know, is it gonna be taken up by a COVID patient, you know, if we get another surge or if the surge you know, comes through. While I won't make you know, any current statements or forward statements about you know, where we are today, we were pretty pleased with the ramp-up in October. You know, that looked pretty good to us.
you know, we also believe that as hospitals are going through this, gosh, what is it, Ryan? The third wave now, fourth wave of.
It could either be third or fourth. I guess fourth now is starting. Yeah.
Yeah. Probably fourth now as we're in the winter of what we've seen are hospitals are finding ways to manage, you know, through it. It's challenging, but they're finding ways to manage. Any other comments on that, Ryan or Linnea, anyone else, before we get to Matt's second question?
Nope.
I think that covers it.
Great. Well, thanks for that. For Linnea, just you had mentioned, I think someone had mentioned this 50,000 procedure sort of milestone that you passed. You know, it brings up the question of where you think penetration is, either in terms of systems and maybe just focusing on the U.S., because I know, you know, other parts of the world are in different stages of adoption and different models for utilization. You know, just thinking about the U.S. maybe, you know, where do you see taking yourselves and your competitor and where you think the market is, penetration in terms of systems and sort of in terms of utilization?
Sure. I think our penetration is continuing to progress. I'm not gonna estimate a specific number, but we're pretty on pace with where we thought we would be in terms of the number of hospitals. In terms of utilization, we do think that it's still low single digits and there's still an enormous opportunity and runway for robotic surgery to cover more of the procedures that Carlton mentioned in talking about our spine portfolio.
You know, Linnea. Sorry, Matt.
Yeah.
Can we just add one thing there just to maybe help a little bit? You know, one area that I think is a pretty good analog with navigation, right, Linnea? You know, if we started navigation, it was kinda low percentage, you know, penetration, and then it slowly kinda ticked up, you know, into nice 30s, you know, plus %.
Yes.
You know, kind of, and then moving on from there. We actually see a progression in the technology, and we've been here before, you know, with the.
That's right.
Adoption of technology.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's a great parallel, Brett. With the navigation rate for spine being, as you mentioned, above 30%, and within 10 years, you think robotics will be in the same place.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. I'll remind the sell-side analysts on the call, if you'd like to ask a question, select the Participants button and click Raise Hand. If you're using a mobile app, press the More button and then select Raise Hand. Next, we'll go to the line of Josh Jennings at Cowen. Josh, go ahead.
Thanks, Ryan, and thanks for the team for hosting us today. Great to get these updates. Just a follow-up on Matt's question and that penetration rate and getting to the same spot navigation is in in the next 10 years. Maybe for Linnea, do you think there's a pathway to accelerate the penetration trajectory of robotics and do you need outcomes data, or would outcomes data accelerate that trajectory that you just laid out? And what is Medtronic's kind of data accrual plan to help spur stronger adoption and utilization trends?
Right. I think it's a combination of things. I'll say innovation, education, and then some of the market development building blocks such as the development of evidence. On the innovation side, just continuing to add to the capability of the robotic platform, which is certainly something that we have our eyes on. Education, we've been very creative throughout the last couple of years and moving education, we've taken the classroom to the clinician. We've used digital medium to really help extend the education around robotic surgery, and that's been really helpful as it's been challenging to launch robotics in different parts of the world. We've really leaned on some of those new channels. Then on the evidence side, I think you're right. We do believe that evidence has an important role here.
It won't just be around robotics, but around the benefits of our entire ecosystem and how they come together. As I mentioned in my history with Medtronic, a couple of different decades in some market development businesses, I really believe that Medtronic has incredible strength in evidence development, and we expect to play a leading role as we continue to shape the future of robotic surgery.
Linnea, if I can add there as well. I think an important element of this as we think about the integration of our technologies, going back to the analog that you and Brett referenced, at that time, our structure was very different, and the way that our teams operated and built their plans was very different. Today, we look at our next generation screw fixation system, which is Modulex, and we did our first case this week of that headless screw being performed through our leading robotic spinal robot, right? I think that's a good example of how this integration of our ecosystem comes together and how the innovation looks different and potentially a possibility for us to accelerate that time horizon that Linnea laid out as well.
That, to me, increases that clinical utility for surgeons to make robotic procedures, what Linnea said earlier, just spinal procedures, because they're using the latest and greatest fixation systems and implants with the latest and greatest robot.
That's a great point. Yep.
Maybe just one follow. Thank you. Thanks for those answers for Brett. Just thinking about accelerating growth for CST and on this share gain journey, how should we be thinking about the kind of long-term organic revenue growth trajectory for the business? I mean, should we be thinking CST will be accretive to the LRP target, the corporate-wide target, or in line with that 5%+ revenue growth guidance? Thanks so much.
Yeah. No, thanks, Josh. You know, our goal here is to, you know, continue to grow in kind of that low- to mid-single-digits range. You know, Ryan, you can provide any further detail on that we've gone through. You know, in that range. We also think that there's some really important segments that we're gonna grow in, you know, faster. If we look at this ecosystem and the technology, if you look at Dan's business and the things that we're gonna be bringing in there, that will be providing, I think, an interesting level of growth from the standpoint of just being able to create more opportunities to plan procedures effectively, and then as we start, you know, providing new implants and other types of technology to come into place.
You know, what's interesting about, I think, this space in general is there still is, I think, opportunities in areas where there's untapped potential, and planning is certainly one of them. With planning, we also think we appeal to surgeons that are coming into the space right now, because you know, frankly, we have a number of people that have been involved in technology their entire lives that are now becoming surgeons. This technology is just an extension of the world that they're in every single day.
It might be a lot harder to have somebody who's maybe been a surgeon for 20 or 30 years to say, "Hey, in the last, you know, decade of your career, do you wanna transition here with us?" We're finding it a lot more interesting and a lot of receptivity to individuals that are brand new in their career to do that. You know, Josh, it's a very large business, but, you know, as we grow, we're gonna grow in these specific areas and then bring the implants and the other things along with us. Dan, any comments on that? Just, you're right in the middle of this and it's a pretty exciting opportunity.
Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think you answered it well, Brett. I'm very excited about the road ahead for IDS, but how we can enable growth across CST. As I mentioned, I mean, we're hyper-focused on investing in a couple big areas. One of them is robotics integration. Another is expanding the universe of data variables that we can bring into our platform. And then, of course, tied to that is algorithm development, so making more robust algorithms on broader data sets that target very specific pathologies across all the spine surgery. That's where we're going. I mean, since we bought the Medicrea business a little over a year ago, we're just on hyper-growth speed, and we've already exceeded roughly 8,600 patients on the platform.
Every day, that number just keeps getting bigger and bigger and makes our opportunity that much stronger to help surgeons with workflow and outcomes.
Great. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Josh, for the questions. I'll remind the analysts on the line, if you'd like to ask a question, just select the Participants button and click Raise Hand. If you're using a mobile app, press the More button and select Raise Hand. Next, let's go to the line of Ryan Zimmerman at BTIG. Ryan?
Can you hear me, Ryan? Sorry.
We can, yes.
Oh, wonderful. Okay, I got that right. Thank you. Just wanna look back. You know, looking back at the spine business, you guys acquired Titan, that gave you kinda nano surface coating technology. You acquired Mazor, that gave you a robot. You've acquired Medicrea, now you have customizable rods. Where is the portfolio gaps potentially still in your spine portfolio that you'd call out as we think about, you know, the broader business?
Carlton, do you wanna take that one?
Yeah. Brad, I'm happy to start. I'll start by saying, the thing about spine, as you know, is that there are a lot of, I'll call it sub-segments within it. As we've done this kind of refresh over the last several years of what segments matter the most, we've been hyper-focused in high growth areas like robotics, like minimally invasive spine surgery, or new technologies like nano surfacing that bring a clinical value proposition that we haven't been able to deliver, as an industry over time.
In terms of, I won't call them gaps today, but there are a number of nascent opportunities that get into both. I'll call it Enabling Technologies that we can add into the ecosystem and/or what Dan referenced in terms of, you know, what other areas of data can we leverage. There are opportunities across every segment of this that impact spine. It's hard for me to pick just one sub-segment or subcategory within spine because of how many there are. The reality is, every day, there's something new that our surgeons are coming up with as a new opportunity, either a procedural approach or a technology.
One thing I'll highlight as we think about innovation is actually not just technology and new products, but also new approaches. As you're well aware some of the players in this space have really latched on to whether it's lateral or minimally invasive. One thing we're doing is indexing that as well. Prone lateral specifically is an area that I'd call maybe potentially a gap that we're filling, that isn't specific to a screw or a cage. It's an approach that makes the procedure more efficient. That's an area that I'll highlight as an opportunity, again. You know, how do we think about procedural innovation and approaches and techniques that take our technologies in to our surgeons in a more effective and efficient way. Hopefully, that's helpful.
I'm curious, Brad, anything to add?
Well, Carlton, one thing to add, Ryan, is we just entered the space, and it's about six weeks ago in the expandable interbodies. That's something Carlton reflected upon earlier. It's called the Catalyft device. This is a large market. We have not had a competitive offering in this particular space. That was a very significant gap to fill for us because you know we have you know roughly a third of the market share in implants. You know all of our loyal physicians who are working with us and Medtronic loyal physicians had to go somewhere else for that particular technology. You know we're launching that really across the country and around the world as we speak.
that is a very significant gap that we filled, which we'll start to see results on that, in the coming quarters.
Thank you. Just if I could squeeze one in on biologics. You know, INFUSE has been a big product for some time, but we haven't heard as much about INFUSE. You know, given the pricing pressures we've seen in stem cells and some of the other higher-priced biologics, I'd love to just get your perspective on how to think about the size of the INFUSE business today and kinda where your biologics business does go over time.
Happy to, one thing we're excited to say is that INFUSE as a business continues to grow. As we think about the growth of that business, it's both in investing in a geographic expansion as well as indication expansion. There's a number of ways that we've been doing that over the years. Fully expect that to continue to grow at the rate it has, if not more. Biologics for us is INFUSE plus other categories of biologics that include, you know, allograft and synthetics. We're investing in those. Those sub-segments of biologics are very different, whereas INFUSE is large, mature, and we have more than our fair share.
Some of these other segments of biologics are ones we've entered more recently, and I'll call it more market share activity versus market development activity. We're investing in new products across that biologics portfolio that give us, you know, different levers, whether it's market development or market share gain activities or initiatives. A lot of work in that area, and we could spend a lot more time just dissecting what that is and the different products we're launching and leverage we're pulling to grow there. Still a very, you know, thriving and a growth area for us in spine.
Thank you for taking the question.
Thanks, Ryan. We'll take one more question here. We'll see if we go back to the line of Shagun Singh at RBC, and we'll see if her line is working now. Shagun, are you there?
Hi. Can you hear me?
We can, yes.
Oh, perfect. Okay, thank you so much. I just have a couple of questions here. You know, firstly, you know, are there any timelines you can share on the personalized implant front? I think that's a pretty interesting platform. With respect to Mazor X, what are the latest technology additions on that platform? I guess we didn't touch on capital, you know, just the capital environment exiting this year and entering 2022. Any color there would be helpful.
All right. Sounds like Dan and Linnea.
Yeah.
Third time's a charm, Shagun. Glad
I'll answer quickly on the IDS front. You know, we're not communicating specific timelines right now for competitive reasons, but I will say we have a whole, a slew of innovations coming out here in the next 24 months, both on the algorithm side and then on the personalized implant side, and then all with the goal to integrate with robotics and expand our data set with more robust algorithms. A lot of excitement ahead, and we're gonna continue to scale.
Expand the platform of patients and make our whole platform offering much more stronger and robust across the entire ecosystem for physicians.
Yeah. On the robotic side, as we look ahead into future developments, we're really focused on covering more and more of the procedure, so adding capability to the platform, as well as Dan just mentioned, leveraging the strength of the ecosystem and looking at how these pieces come together in a meaningful way across the procedure. As you can see on this call, it's very unusual, but as a team, we share a surgeon, an operating room, and a patient. The beauty of this ecosystem is that it all comes together really tightly. Then moving forward into future technologies that technology around robotics, of course, moving at the right pace towards more automation on the platform.
Got it. On the capital environment for, next year and exiting this one?
Yeah. I'll speak to what we've experienced over the last several quarters, and we've been pleasantly surprised, actually. We've been stable and healthy as we've looked at both the upgrade cycle as well as new product placements, especially for technology that's really well established. You know, we've had very strong quarters as we've reported on our earnings calls, for our capital platforms, and really hope that will continue as we go forward.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Shagun. So with that, we'll conclude the call today. Wanna thank Brett, Linnea, Carlton, and Dan for their participation in today's event. Thanks to the audience for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to me or Wyn Edgson on my team. As a reminder, a replay of this call will be available on our website at investorrelations.medtronic.com later today. We hope you'll join us for our next episode, which we're working on and hope to announce soon. Thanks for your continued support and interest in Medtronic. Happy holidays to all of you, and have a great weekend. Bye.