All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me okay? All right, we're gonna get started with our keynote speaker today. I'm Larry Biegelsen, the medical device analyst at Wells Fargo. Welcome to our 2023 healthcare conference. It's great to see so many people here, so many familiar faces. I'm really thrilled to have Geoff Martha as our keynote speaker today. Geoff is the chairman and CEO of Medtronic, which is the world's largest medical technology company, with annual sales of about $32 billion and a market cap of over $100 billion. Geoff's been Medtronic's CEO since April 2020, which was obviously an interesting time to lead a medical device company. Before becoming CEO, Geoff was. Geoff led Medtronic's Restorative Therapies Group, which is a $10 billion business.
He also led the integration of Covidien, which is one of, if not the largest acquisition in the medical device industry. Before joining Medtronic, Geoff spent almost 20 years at GE Capital and GE Healthcare. During today's discussion, you may hear some hockey references. That's because Geoff was captain of the Penn State men's hockey team and later inducted into its Hockey Hall of Fame. And I just learned Geoff still plays hockey occasionally.
Occasionally, yeah.
The format's gonna be moderated Q&A. If anyone in the audience has a question, you know, for Geoff, please raise your hand, and I'll bring a mic. We'll bring a mic over. So Geoff, thanks so much for agreeing to be our keynote speaker today.
Well, thanks for having me, and thanks for everybody joining us during your lunch hour. Pretty much appreciated. But especially this, this hotel, where there's alternative forms of entertainment, I guess, with the casino.
Definitely. It's good, good to have you back at the conference. So let's, let's, jump into the questions. Geoff, we've seen strong growth from med tech companies coming out of COVID, including 6% organic growth from Medtronic last quarter. In your view, what's the state of med- tech today, the medical device industry?
Well, I'd say two things at a high level. One is, you know, especially coming out of the COVID years, procedural growth is back, at or above pre-COVID levels for, you know, pretty much, you know, almost all, segments, at least the ones we participate in. And so we feel good about that. And then innovation. You know, whether it be traditional biomedical, engineering related, like PFA, which I'm sure we'll get in here for ablation and what that means, to grow that market, and I'll give you a bunch of other examples, or the introduction of digital technologies into the med- tech space, whether that be the connectivity of devices, leveraging our large data sets, to apply data analytics techniques like deep learning or machine learning or AI, and then robotics.
Just huge opportunities. So I think the industry is in a good place, and you're seeing that reflected in various companies' growth numbers.
That's, that's fair. That's helpful. What are some of the novel areas you're investing in, like AI? You touched upon it a minute ago, robotics. Can you expand upon that?
Yes, and some of the, like, if you mean by novel, you know, beyond, like, traditional biomedical engineering, the digital technologies, I would say, like, the. We talked about the connectivity. And when you talk about AI, it's a couple of things. It's like, you know, you have to. There's lots of talk around ChatGPT and all that, and it's not, you know, good enough for healthcare, if you ask me. I mean, it's, 95% accuracy is not good enough for healthcare. So we have to leverage our own data set.
So understanding those data sets, getting the permission to use them, labeling, curating that data, labeling that data, and using it to train AI algorithms, and then having AI platforms that we can scale across the company are big areas of investment for us. We can talk about how that's manifesting itself in some of our products and the benefits we're seeing. And another area would be... Robotics is almost too narrow of a term, but enabling technology that, you know, people just kind of refer to as robotics, but building these surgical ecosystems, robotics, imaging, interoperable imaging, navigation, powered instruments, an AI layer that can, over time, drive us to think about self-driving robotic surgery. These are areas that we're putting a lot of time and investment in.
So, for something like AI, is there like a central group or person, or is this kind of each individual business responsible for?
That's a great question. So, what we did a couple of years ago, when I first started, is we held back a little bit of R&D money, and we had, like, a shark tank of our businesses and said, "For AI-related offerings, let's have a shark tank." And, like, there was, like, four or five businesses that we ended up giving extra R&D to. But there's a number of businesses that have developed it on their own. But more recently, we have, like, a couple of AI platforms, but more—some we've purchased, some we've developed organically, and some are a bit of a hybrid, a little organic and inorganic. But more recently, we've hired a head of technology for the company, which we haven't had before, Dr. Ken Washington.
We hired him out of the tech space. He's also got aerospace background as well, and automotive, but to specifically drive a more scalable AI platform across the company. So we've had some sprung up in the individual businesses. We think the scale that's going forward, a more efficient way, we will have a more harmonized system. And out of that, also, you know, partnerships with some of the tech companies like NVIDIA. So he's responsible for that.
And where are you applying AI today? Where do you see applications in the future?
So I think applications in the future will be across all of our everything we do. But right now, it's in the surgical businesses, for example. I'll give you the spine example, where we have this, we call it our enabling technology ecosystem, which we call AiBLE. A big piece of that is AI. So that's the, you know, Mazor Robotics, our, you know, StealthStation navigation, Midas Rex powered instruments, and then our AI platform, which is doing pre-planned surgical plans. You know, AI-driven pre-surgical plans, which actually, once you get into the OR, drive the technology, just guide the technology and guide the surgeon. And then we have a closed loop there, and we now, in our platform, have, you know, well over 10,000, 12,000 surgeries, and every surgery is getting smarter.
So that's a great example. Colonoscopies, GI Genius for colonoscopies. We're picking up using AI in the traditional colonoscopy suite. We're picking up 50% more polyps, and the linkage between polyps and cancer is very fairly high. And, you know, basically, surgeons are missing these things. The AI is making them better. And last example I give, we have others, would be Reveal LINQ cardiac loop monitor for picking up AFib. You know, we for a year pioneered that space, the insertable loop recorder. Our algorithms are super sensitive, picking up 99.something% of the historically of the arrhythmias, but not as sensitive or not as specific as we wanted them. And so there were some false positives, which limited the adoption because the physicians don't want more data, they want insights.
We've used AI to cut out those false positives to almost entirely, and it's really driven our growth. So those are some examples, where we're using it, but it's, it's gonna be across the whole portfolio.
Connected devices. People use AI-connected devices, sometimes interchangeably, but you have a lot of connected devices too-
Mm-hmm.
-like CGM.
Right.
You know, where do you see that field going, connected devices and at Medtronic?
Well, I mean, look, the, the example I just gave, to build on the, LINQ example, the fact that it's now connected to... through your phone into the cloud, it enables us to do a whole lot more computing power on that device without putting it on the device and draining the battery. So it's really driving a lot of efficacy, and opening up new markets for us. On the diabetes space, look, we're seeing, that whole space move to this automated insulin delivery, and the connected devices, are really... We're, you know, using the connectivity to the cloud and using AI. We're learning people's habits and being able to actually predict blood sugar changes. So it's very compelling.
That's interesting. And you talked about enabling technology like robotics.
Right.
You guys are investing a lot there. What, Why is that important, and how does that benefit patients?
So how it benefits patients is it's democratizing good surgery. I mean, it's, it's what you're doing, is you're having, whether it be soft tissue robotics or the spine example I gave earlier, you're enabled to do more, ensure the precision there. A surgeon, you know, historically, has a plan. They have a plan, based on imaging, and now with the enabling technology, you can determine, you know, how well you did against that plan. Taking it to the next level, you know, with robotics. It's also over time, you're gonna see automate parts of the procedure. So I think phase I, it's surgeon-guided, and it's, it's making these surgeons more precise with what they're doing. Stage two, think about, you know, auto-assist during the surgery.
Like, the next step should be this, and the surgeon can override that or not, but they'll know, based on all the literature, based on all the AI learnings, what the next step in that procedure should be. So it'd be a driver assist. And then over time, you're gonna see us automating large parts of the procedure. Like, for example, in spine, the bone cutting piece of it is the laborious part of the procedure that takes a long time. You know, I, I can see us automating that in the future here, or automating just large parts of the surgery. You know, I don't, I don't think we're gonna be replacing surgeons anytime soon, but you probably heard this quote before, Larry. I mean, and I... Now I really believe this, and I'm seeing it.
I don't think AI is gonna replace surgeons anytime soon, but AI, surgeons who use AI will be replacing surgeons that don't, and that is very clear.
That's interesting. So, Geoff, switching gears, med tech right now is actually, despite, you know, the strong growth we've seen, it's actually out of favor-
Right
-with investors, partly because of concerns around GLP-1 drugs.
Mm-hmm.
People are concerned that GLP-1s will reduce demand for certain procedures.
Right.
It's gonna reduce, you know, the TAM for certain end markets. What's your view?
So look, we've done some of our own work internally, talked to a lot of experts in these different fields, and they, you know, short answer is we don't agree based on the work that we've done with the view you just articulated. We don't see that impact. The areas that are communicated to me on our portfolio that are of concern would be diabetes, cardiovascular-related therapies, and bariatric surgery. For us, diabetes, we're a type one company, and the GLP-1s don't impact that, so we don't see the impact on type ones. Regarding cardiovascular, you know, we don't see the impact there after doing a lot of analysis. The one area we have seen a little bit of impact is bariatric surgery. This is a low single-digit part of revenue for us.
And when you further refine it to the geographies where we're seeing impact, it's very modest impact. And when you confine it to the geographies we're seeing, it's very low single- digits impact. And over time, the question we have on that is, will GLP-1s actually introduce more patients to the care pathway? And over time, will it become, you know, a tailwind? I don't know, but the headwind side of it is very modest, and there's a question whether or not it'll be a tailwind. So overall, we're not seeing a significant impact, and we don't anticipate that, we don't anticipate that changing.
That's helpful. That is consistent with the survey we did recently.
It is consistent. Yes. Good.
That makes me feel better because
Good.
Likewise. So let's talk about the regulatory environment. Actually, maybe just go back to the GLP-1. On the cardiovascular side-
Mm-hmm.
You said you're not concerned there. Anything... I, I think I know why, but I'd just love to hear kind of why.
You did the survey. You thought, I mean, our guys are just telling me for a variety of reasons, there's puts and takes, but when you look at, you take a step back and look at it holistically, they're not seeing it.
Okay. All right. Fair enough. Let's touch upon the other question on GLP-1s, by the way, that I get a lot. I don't know if you have an opinion on this, how long, probably, you know, this is more of an investor question, how long this overhang lasts, so-
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. Look, it's an important class of drugs for consumers. I don't even want to call them patients at this point, you know, for consumers, that will have a positive impact on consumers and patients. But we don't, you know. It's something we're following, but we're just not seeing the impact. And hopefully, this concern will play out, and hopefully, this concern is a short-lived one.
Yep. Let's touch upon the regulatory environment. What's the interesting trend is that we have the FDA, which seems to be, I'll just, for lack of a better word, becoming more efficient.
Mm-hmm.
We've seen approvals take longer in Europe. How do you see the regulatory environment evolving, you know, in the major markets around the world?
Well, first of all, in the FDA, I mean, they're never gonna... I always believe that they have the patient's best interest in mind, both safety and efficacy, and they and I work with them very closely, and I... Look, I see that up and down the organization. So they're not gonna sacrifice that. But they are working with industry, at the industry level, and I'm part of AdvaMed on the board, to become more efficient. And it's great to see, and they take it very seriously, the safety, the efficacy, and they wanna be on the cutting edge of things like AI. And how does that work? You can't just give the FDA a black box. They wanna understand-
Right.
how it works, and so they're learning, and they're learning new skills. And I am optimistic that it's gonna continue to get more efficient. Outside of the U.S., I'm assuming you're talking about, you know, Europe in particular and the EU, the new EU MDR standards. Look, we've been working on this for a long time, because the dates have gotten pushed out, internally and working with our different notified body partners around the world. And look, we've gotten a few products through EU MDR here recently, and they've gone as expected. So, it's early. We've been working on this for a while. We feel prepared for it, and we'll keep a close eye on it, but so far, so good.
I know the notified bodies who we work with are, you know, getting comfortable with the new framework and identifying opportunities to even speed it up from where it is.
Yeah. I, I don't know if you would agree with this, but what we hear is, you know, companies with, you know, strong resources-
Mm-hmm.
you know, strong regulatory personnel.
Mm-hmm.
You know, have an advantage.
Yep.
That's Medtronic.
Yeah. No, look, I can't comment on the other companies, but I can tell you, we've put almost mind-boggling amount of energy into this to ensure a smooth transition, and so far, so good.
That's good. You know, I wanted to transition to emerging markets.
Mm-hmm.
You know, 17% of sales by our math, I think for Medtronic-
Mm-hmm.
—you know, pretty, pretty high, you know, was a, you know, a big focus of your predecessor.
Right.
And I think it was one of the areas, you know, where Omar was very successful.
Mm-hmm.
During his tenure, increasing, you know, the exposure to emerging markets. How are you thinking about emerging market growth versus developed market growth?
Well, look, short answer is we're very bullish on emerging markets. And I agree with you. Omar was successful in this area, driving our awareness, driving our business there, also our sophistication on how to access these markets, being students of these different healthcare systems around the world, because healthcare systems are more local. And so that legacy has stayed with us, and we're a more sophisticated company when it comes to emerging markets. We look at it as a separate, almost independent growth vector for the company, and we see this in the mid-teens opportunity, you know, double- digits, you know, for sure on a consistent basis going forward. We have work to do. We have to continue to evolve.
In some cases, you have to localize, you have to understand market access. We have a very strong footprint on the ground in these different markets, and we've... In our-- The operating model changes that we put in place when I became CEO, we've actually empowered our emerging market leaders more to make more of the decisions on the ground. Especially during COVID, that was helpful because you weren't traveling as much, and we've kept that in place, and I think that's helped. You know, the two areas that haven't been as strong a growth for us in emerging markets has been China because of VBP, but we expect to be through that by the end of our fiscal year and get back to that high single- digit, maybe double-digit growth in China.
And Russia in the short- term, has been a headwind with the new sanctions. I mean, there's been a new round of sanctions, and we don't have operations in Russia, but we do provide life-sustaining, life-saving therapies, like replacing pacemakers, and so we still do that, but that's been harder with the new sanctions. So other than those two areas, and like I said, China, there's a path back here. You know, we feel very good about emerging markets. And in developed markets, it's gonna be driven by innovation. So that's tied to our innovation pipeline. The procedure volumes, like we talked about, are back, which is great. And then our success will be tied to our innovation pipeline, and we feel really good about that. I've been asked some questions about it.
I'm sure we'll get into more of it.
That's helpful. Just to stick with China, investors are concerned about China for a variety of reasons, macro concerns, VBP, which for people not in the weeds on med- tech, value-based purchasing, it's basically tenders.
Mm-hmm.
And then people are now concerned about the anti-corruption policies being put in place. I know you were asked about this on the earnings call two weeks ago. Anything new there? And maybe just at a high level, how are you thinking about China going forward?
Well, I'll hit on all three things. On the macro, you know, China-U.S. relations, I mean, that's hard to handicap, but stay very close to this and in communication with senior U.S. government officials and Chinese government officials. There was some optimism coming out of Secretary Raimondo's meetings there last week, and, you know, so we'll see where that goes. It's good to see the two governments talking, but it's hard to predict, you know?
Right.
I don't want to... but I'm feeling a little bit more, I'm feeling a little better about it after a series of visits from Biden administration officials, most recently from Gina Raimondo last week. On the big one that we've been dealing with is the pricing on VBP. Like you said, I think we'll be through that by the end of this fiscal year. The Chinese government, we've been in a lot of dialogue with them. The Chinese government has seen that maybe they've gone a little far and have pulled back on the discounts, the pricing as it's gone on. And, you know, but what we've... So the pricing reductions have been not as bad. We're almost through it totally, and I think we'll start growing from here.
Even the second round of VBP for some of the therapies we're in, the pricing's going up. And, so I think, you know, that we should get back to the high single- digit, double-digit growth. And on the anti-corruption, which is kind of new, you know, I know you've asked us for a bunch of companies and gotten maybe one different answer. We're not seeing the impact of that at this point. So we're watching it closely, but we're not seeing an impact.
Any impact on procedures as well?
No, our procedure growth is, like we just said two weeks ago, procedure growth is strong in China, and we have not seen an impact from anti-corruption.
And when you talk to your folks there, which I'm sure you do, like, why, why are you not concerned? You know, why are they... You know, what, what's the reason they say that this isn't gonna have an impact on procedure?
It's something we're watching, all right? We don't have our heads in the sand here. It's something we're watching, and we're well making these comments relative to Medtronic. Just the type of hospitals that we're in, the type of the segments that we're in, I think, you know, capital equipment for the company is maybe 5% total, but it's less in China, you know? You know, we don't have the exposure to capital equipment, and the VBP actually is kind of protecting us from this a bit. Pricing is set, pricing's come down, pricing is contracted. The middlemen in the market have been mitigated through VBP. So it sets up an environment that is less, I think, prone to the corruption the Chinese government's looking for.
Interesting. It's ironic that VBP could help.
A silver lining, Larry, if you look for it, almost anything.
You know, we've got about 15 minutes left. You know, Medtronic is the world's largest device company. How is scale an advantage?
You know, honestly, it has. You know, in the recent past, it really hasn't been, and that's on us. We've got to make it an advantage, and that's something we've been really focused on. In our new operating model, you know, it's. We're a couple of years into it. We talked about playing small and playing big because there's the well-known kind of dynamic in med- tech, where focus has done well. So we've focused our operating units on their end markets, and we're allocating capital at that level. So we're allocating capital from the top to these focused units that use that capital. They pick what widget they're gonna invest in, what new mitral valve, would you prioritize replacement or repair? That's all done there. We just know that that market's growing, and we're going to allocate capital there.
But on the scale side, we've also said we've been spending time on, you got to make the scale count, and that's the big side of our model. And there, there's a couple areas we're focused on, two in particular, that I'll three, really. One is global operations and supply chain. Supply chains have gotten more complicated, and I think less predictable, and our scale needs to be an advantage. So that's one area we've brought on a whole new leadership there. We've been investing in tools that cut across the company. We're managing all our factories the same way.
We're now looking, consolidating our suppliers to fewer small suppliers, so, to a lot of small suppliers, to fewer big suppliers, where we matter to them, and we're getting long-term strategic relationships, and that's a source of resiliency for us now, and cost of goods sold productivity that'll be years and years to come, 2x-3x what we've been seeing in the past. So that's one area. Another area would be technology platforms like AI. I think, you know, the big tech companies want to partner with bigger companies like us. I think there's a benefit to having an AI platform, for example, or a couple of robotics platforms that can scale across multiple businesses. So that's another area, technology platforms.
And then a third would be large hospital systems around the world are looking to companies like us for, I think, better partnerships. And there's less of this going back and forth on price. There's more, how do we take cost out of the system?
That's helpful. Geoff, we focused on Medtronic, you know, again, strong Q1, fiscal Q1.
Yeah.
Your fiscal year, you just reported two weeks ago, organic growth at 6%. How are you thinking about the rest of fiscal 2024?
Look, I think we've been focused on, for fiscal 2024, is to prove out that the supply chain issues are behind us, and that the pipeline's at a place where you guys can... investors can feel good about the mid-single digit growth and that it's, and that it's durable. And so we just want to continue to prove that out, you know, throughout FY 2024. And our guidance, we don't want to get ahead of that, you know. You know, I get a lot of questions on the guidance, why, you know. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. But we're feeling good about where we stand in terms of the resiliency and the mid-single- digit, and the fact that it's gonna be durable, and it's really primarily innovation-driven growth.
Some emerging market exposure helps now. Then the third thing I would say is proving out, stabilizing our margins and setting ourselves up to improve those margins over time.
That's helpful. You mentioned it earlier, I think renal denervation, that it would come up. So now-
Yeah, sure.
- I'll ask. It was very interesting. Obviously, you know, advisory committee meeting a couple of weeks ago.
Mm-hmm.
Company, private company, ReCor, went before you.
Yep.
Relatively similar data, similar technology, but a little bit different energy-
Right.
source. You got they had a positive vote, if you will.
Mm-hmm
on the, you know, benefit-risk. And then you went the next day, and it was six-seven against Ardian Symplicity.
Right. Right.
What's the path forward here?
Well, first of all, it wasn't. The dialogue was good. If you actually listened to it, we still let me say, we have confidence in the therapy, both obviously, the safety was unanimous.
Thirteen-
Yeah.
13 to 0.
Right.
Yeah.
Safety is unanimous, and the efficacy, I know our data, you have to pierce through it. We have a lot of data. We have a lot of confidence in it, and there's you have to pierce through it. And I think the dialogue, if you listen to it, was helpful, and it was not a vote against Ardian, and against approval, rather. This is in the FDA's hands. I think the FDA had a good dialogue. I think the panel gave them a lot of latitude to make a decision. I don't want to get ahead of the FDA, but we'll see where it goes. We're heavily engaged with them now, and it's answering their questions, and it's in their hands, but we feel confident about the therapy.
I mean, there were two people who voted no on the, you know, risk-benefit being positive, who said, "If you change the label, then I might vote yes." So, you know, we basically wrote that there's still... I, I think we wrote, you know, greater than a 50% chance of approval, but I think we said there's still... I can't remember exactly what percent we put on it. I know you're confident in it. Is it just impossible to handicap at this point?
Well, I don't want to handicap it either, because I don't want to get ahead of the FDA, and, like I said before, I trust that they are committed to doing what they believe is the right thing for patients, both safety and efficacy. They want to see innovation hit the market. We have a lot of data. They're investing time to understand that data, and they'll come out with an informed decision. You know, we hope it's an approval, but it's, you know, we're being responsive to them. We'll see where it goes.
The market opportunity, Geoff, I mean, I did, I did listen to a decent amount of it. The doctors did come back and say: Look, I think it works, but the efficacy is modest. It's basically in line with kind of one drug. How are you thinking about... Let's just say it does get approved, did anything from the panel change your view on kind of the market opportunity?
I think we have to simplify our messaging a bit. I mean, look, we saw during COVID, you know, like in our trial, that unfortunately happened during COVID, a 10x difference in medical burden, medicine burden. So the group that got Ardian sitting at home, they're supposed to, you know, they stopped taking their meds, and they weren't supposed to. The group that because they, the Ardian helped them. The group that didn't get Ardian took more meds. We could see that in their urine testing.
Right.
The difference, when you look at it, is 10x. In the real world, that matters. That matters.
Right.
The safety is very good. We think it, it's got a very strong value proposition that the physicians will get, and, you know, over time, payers will understand this as well.
That's helpful. Geoff, what else? There's a lot going on at Medtronic. What, what else are you excited about?
I think I'm excited. Look, there was a couple things when I stepped in as CEO, I didn't fully understand. We had some fundamental issues in our supply chain that we had to fix, and I really believe that, we've made a lot of improvement there that's durable. And I'm excited about that, not just on resiliency, but cost. That'll help us on our margins going forward, and then our pipeline's in a better place. You know, we're talking about Ardian, but, you know, the robots out there, over time, that's going to be a growth driver. Hugo, or you know, I love—you know, you were—I was talking to you when I first, I started at Medtronic in 2011, but, was in that BD and M&A role.
Didn't have the distinct pleasure of dealing with you, talking to you until I got into the neuroscience role. So you know, this goes back to 2015. The changes we've made in the spine industry is really insightful to me, where we took an industry that was more commoditized, heading down a commoditized route, and interjected technology, robotics, imaging, navigation, and really changed the nature of that industry to a technology industry and a growth. It's growing. We're growing. $4.5 billion business, high margin, high cash flow, growing, you know, 6%+, very good. And it's consolidating the industry, and it just inspired me to show, look, you know, the introduction of technology and our engineering prowess can actually really drive better patient outcomes and actually change the industry dynamics.
And you're seeing us go down the path, you know, of the spine one we just talked about. Diabetes turnaround is underway, you know, with our technology there. You know, I think we're doing better in TAVR here, and we're holding serve there, growing at the market, and I'm optimistic about the rest of structural heart. So as you go down, you know, we've opened up a big opportunity in PFA and AFib. So I'm excited about, you know, one, the technology, and two, the company getting confidence and accountability around leading these markets with technology and making ourselves more competitive.
I didn't hear you talk about Hugo. Are you-
Yeah, that was in there. Soft tissue robot, Hugo. Yeah. So yeah, Hugo, very excited about.
Okay.
Matter of fact, that was just... Our Hugo team is here in Boston, in the Seaport area. We're just expanding into a larger facility there. We were just with the team yesterday, super exciting. They're very optimistic about the capabilities of Hugo, the indication expansion, and as we get our instruments, stapling energy over time, I think this is gonna be a very a powerful tool.
It's good to hear. I know it's an important area for Medtronic.
Yeah.
A couple of minutes left here. You know, you've talked about durable mid-single-digit growth. I mean, you know, it's been a while since you had an investor meeting, you know, updated long-term financial goals. The last time you did, you had a goal of 5%+
Uh-huh.
For organic growth, top- line, and you had an 8% EPS growth target. You know, what's the latest on that? Is that still, you know, beyond fiscal 2024? Because you have guidance out there for this year.
Yeah.
Is that, are those still realistic goals for Medtronic?
Yeah, I think so. With the timing on the profit one, we'll have to, because we have to get our margins back, right? Inflation and FX have, you know, taken a bite out of the industries, and especially a company that's global like us on the FX is hurt. And so, we've got to get... I feel good about the mid-single-digit growth. We haven't given specifics on when and where those margins will go, like the timing of the ramp back up and how high they'll go, so that's coming. But needless to say, we feel good about, like we've said, stabilizing them this year and growing them from here for various reasons we can walk through, and then maintaining our dividend. So, I feel that that formula still works.
We've got to prove it, I fully realize that, and feeling better about the growth side of it. Dividend side is not, never been in question, and we got to give an update at the appropriate time on the profit side as to the timing of that.
I didn't ask anything about inflation, but is there anything, inflation, the inflationary headwinds-
Mm-hmm.
Getting better, stable? How would you characterize it?
It's better. It's better than it was. I mean, it's off its highs, but the labor side of it is still a little, you know, persistent. For us, the biggest piece of inflation was our biggest cost of goods sold component is raw material, and that's the vast majority of it. So through our supplier consolidation work, we're even though there's still some inflation there, we're more than offsetting it through what we're doing in supplier consolidation. The labor fees is still a little high, but way off its where it was. So it's getting better.
It's, as you know, in your analysis would show, it's still not where it was, but that's, it's better than you might think because of so much is in raw material, and we're able to offset with that, the supplier consolidation. But the labor, you know, we are subject to labor rates around the country, around the world rather.
All right. We're just about out of time. Geoff, I, I'll give you the last word. Any closing remarks? Anything you want to highlight we didn't touch upon?
No, I just think we touched upon a lot of it. I think it, the industry is in a good spot, you know, a better spot than it's been with procedural growth. And the questions on China, I you know, I do think China is bottomed, and we're gonna hit, you know, it's a little-- It can be a little lumpy and a little... But over time, I think it's, you know, we'll see where this, some of these other questions come up. But over time, I think China is gonna be a source of growth for the industry.
Then for Medtronic, like I said, I feel good about the fundamentals that we've built over the last couple of years, that they are durable, and the pipeline and where it is to get that growth. I appreciate everybody's engagement and appreciate your-
Of course.
I appreciate what you're doing for the industry, Larry. I do, I do.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Geoff. Thanks for being here.
Really appreciate it.