Good morning, everyone. I am Jim Gustafson, Vice President of Investor Relations for Envista, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to our 2026 Investor Day. We want to thank you for your interest in our company, and a special thanks to those of you who have made the journey to join us in person here at our Nobel Biocare facility in Mahwah, New Jersey. I would like to remind you that during the presentation that we are sharing today, it will also be available for download at the Events and Presentations section of our IR website at investors.envistaco.com. Additionally, this is being webcast live on the same Events and Presentation section of our website and will be available for replay later today after the event has concluded. In our presentation today, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. For more information on these risks, please refer to our SEC filings, including our recently filed Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Additionally, we will reference some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendix of this presentation, which as I mentioned, is available for download on our website. Today, you will have the opportunity to hear from six members of Envista's leadership team. Paul Keel, our CEO, will lead off the agenda with a discussion of our value creation plan. This will be followed by a presentation from the leaders of our four main businesses. Stefan Nilsson will discuss our dental implant business, and Veronica Acurio will go over our plans in orthodontics.
Filippo Impieri will then review our dental consumables business, and Robert Befidi will share details on our diagnostics business. Eric Hammes, our Chief Financial Officer, will then close with details on our multi-year financial outlook. After a brief break to set up for Q&A, those of you in the room will have the opportunity to ask questions to members of our leadership team. After that, I will now turn it over to our CEO, Paul Keel.
Were the applause for Jim or for me? All right, good. We appreciate it. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I am going to kick things off with three opening comments to set the frame for the rest of the morning. First, you will remember in March of 2025, we shared a value creation plan that consisted of three core priorities, accelerating our growth, improving our operations, and investing in our people. At that time, we believed that improvement along these dimensions would also bring up increase in Envista's financial performance, particularly around the four medium-term metrics that you see here. Looking back across the past 18 months since that event, we are encouraged by our progress. Propelled by new product and commercial execution, we have posted now six straight quarters of fairly broad-based growth.
Leveraging the Envista business system, we have amplified that top-line growth into even faster EBITDA and EPS expansion. With a deeper commitment to people and culture, we are seeing sustained increases in employee engagement, talent development, and our community impact. The resulting financial performance, as we hoped, has improved alongside this, and we are consistently delivering at or above those ranges that are shown here. Across multiple dimensions, Envista is an even stronger company today than we were just two years ago. Our new product pipeline has never been stronger. Margins are up around 300 basis points, and we have gained market share in most of the main categories where we compete. Envista is now performing at a higher level, and as such, we are raising our medium-term outlook. I will say more about this in just a moment.
Before we go through the drivers underpinning the step-up, let us take a step back and look at the broader dental market. As everyone in this room knows, dental is a structurally attractive industry. Across the full landscape, it amounts to around $400 billion in annual spend, making it one of the larger healthcare categories. This stands to reason, as it is one of the few markets where every person on the planet is a potential patient, and most of us, our dental demand grows as we get older. Supported by a number of structural factors like those you see on the right side of this chart, dental consistently outgrows the broader economy. This has been true in stronger economic times, like 2004- 2007, or the run-up to COVID in 2016- 2019.
It has also been true in contractionary times, like the global financial crisis of 2008- 2009. In fact, if you look at the chart on the left, you can see that there is only a very small handful of years where dental growth materially lagged GDP. The COVID lockdown of 2020, of course, is the most extreme example, when U.S. dental expenditure compressed by 11% against a nominal GDP decline of just 1%. If you look to the right of the COVID bar, you can see that dental is once again settling back into its long-term trend, outgrowing the broader economy in two of the last three years. While dental is a good category in general, we participate in some of the very best segments within the market.
We have been in and out of various parts of the dental landscape across our history, and you see some of those at the bottom of the chart, but we particularly like the four at the top. Implants, ortho, diagnostics, and consumables. We hold a top three position in each of these. There is a clear logic to this focus. Every dental procedure has the same three steps, scan, plan, and treat. Scan describes the upfront diagnostic step where a patient's needs are assessed. Plan is the middle step where the care is designed, and treat is the therapeutic step at the end where the care is delivered. It is difficult to serve customers across the full continuum, but for the small handful of players that can do it, there are clear economic, clinical, and operational benefits that accrue.
We aggregate our four businesses into the two reporting segments you see here. Specialty products and technologies accounts for about 2/3 of our sales, and equipment and consumables accounts for the remaining third. Specialty categories, like implants and ortho, are most often sold directly to clinicians with no distribution layer in between. This requires unique clinical education and service capabilities that take years to build. But as a consequence, the supplier set tends to be smaller. For these and other reasons, over time, specialty dental tends to grow more quickly and with higher margins than general dentistry. Unlike specialty products, equipment and consumables products are used by all clinicians. As such, suppliers like Envista, again, who support customers across that full continuum, have a distinct competitive advantage, especially with diversified customers like DSOs or universities or outside the U.S. with public hospital systems.
Consumables are typically used in primary care procedures, which in turn are most often covered by insurance. While through cycle growth for consumables tends to be lower than specialty, demand also tends to be more stable. Envista, with our full portfolio, we benefit from both of these dynamics. We have greater stability in periods of heightened uncertainty, and we also benefit from accelerated growth when sentiment is stronger. Having touched on the broader market, let's focus in on Envista. We've been a leader in the global dental market now for over 135 years, and we're home to many of the most respected brands in the industry. Brands like Nobel Biocare, Ormco, and Kerr enjoy 100% recognition amongst clinicians in those respective categories.
As you can see across the bottom of the chart, in addition to being well-balanced in terms of product, our portfolio is also nicely diversified in terms of geography and go-to-market model. Roughly half our sales come from North America, with the balance roughly equally split between Europe and developing markets. In terms of channel, about 60% of our sales, as I mentioned, are sold direct, and the remaining 40% go through distribution partners, many of whom we've worked with for decades. We hold over 1,500 patents and have played a role in many of the most important innovations in dentistry, and I'll say more about this shortly. You'll recognize this slide from last March when we first communicated our value creation plan, and the architecture of the plan remains unchanged. A clear purpose, a shared set of values, and three enterprise priorities.
Everything begins on the left with our purpose of partnering with dental professionals to improve patient lives. The purpose connects us directly to our customers, it gives true meaning to our work each day, and it keeps everyone focused on patient outcomes, which is at the center of everything in dentistry. Just as important are the values that define how we operate. Across more than 130 countries, the 12,000 employees of Envista are unified by our circle values. All non-production employees in our company, and the resulting compensation that comes from that, are measured both by what we achieve as well as how we achieve it. We do this because sustainable performance demands both.
We bring our purpose and values to life through the three core priorities you see, growth, operations, and people, and these priorities form the seabed of how we continually advance our capabilities, improve our performance, and create value for all stakeholders. You will also recognize this slide from our last capital markets event. It laid out the specific areas we said we were going to work on. Let us now turn to our assessment of how we are progressing across those priorities. The headline here is that we are moving the needle in all priority areas. On growth, we have strengthened both our customer penetration and our commercial execution. We are building on our strong position in core developing markets like China and Russia, while also expanding our smaller presence in other fast-growing countries like India and Brazil.
We are also deepening our penetration with DSOs, and we are taking share in many of the largest accounts around the world. You will see we gave ourselves a half moon rating here to recognize the progress we made, but more importantly, the very significant upside that is still available to us. In terms of commercial execution, let me catch up here. In terms of commercial execution, you will see that implants has now returned to growth, and last year we delivered our fastest performance since 2022.
We also gave ourselves a half moon rating here. We are encouraged, but not yet fully satisfied with our accelerating growth. Stefan, Spark is performing wonderfully, having gained share and expanded margins every year since launch. Tremendous progress, but even more upside still ahead of us, even with Spark. With respect to innovation, we have materially increased our R&D investment, and early returns are promising.
Alongside improved organic execution, we have also restarted our inorganic engine, and we completed three small bolt-on but accretive acquisitions over the past 18 months. Moving to operations in the orange, we are delivering durable improvements to sustainably fund our faster growth. We have redoubled our focus on factory productivity, launching enterprise footprint, automation, and procurement efforts that did not exist two years ago. We gave ourselves another half moon here, pointed in the right direction, but still with a lot of margin to play for. G&A as a percent of sales is down almost three points, and our working capital turns are steadily in the fives amongst the best in the industry, so we thought that earned a three-quarter pie. Maybe most importantly, on people, we are strengthening the foundation that makes all this progress possible.
We have refreshed our leadership team, we are investing in talent development, and we are seeing broad-based year-on-year improvements in employee engagement. Three-quarters of a moon. While we have covered a lot of ground over the past year and a half, it is important to underline that we are not just pursuing near-term improvement. We are building repeatable capabilities to support stronger performance over time.
Let us now take a look at how this progress has translated into results. As you see on this slide, we have delivered above the outlook range for each metric in 2025, and we are guiding to be again in the range for 2026. We are encouraged by this performance, both the absolute numbers as well as what Eric calls the say/do ratio. Are we clearly and transparently communicating to all of you our current, and as well as can be expected, our future performance? That is the say.
And are we delivering in line or better when taking into account exogenous factors? That's the do. Central to the say/do ratio is making both tailwinds and headwinds visible. To iterate what we've talked about on prior calls, our performance over the past 18 months has benefited from some non-recurring tailwinds. For example, Spark deferral, channel inventory normalization, and tariff-related pricing actions. Netting all of these out, Envista is consistently growing around 3%-4%. Through the work I just described in COGS and G&A productivity, we leverage this into EBITDA growth of about twice as fast. Add to that another point or two in EPS growth from expanded initiatives in tax and capital deployment, and we convert all of this into cash at a sustainably efficient 1/1 ratio.
The takeaway for all of you is that Envista is now durably operating at a higher level than where we were two years ago. So where do we go from here? Our plan moving forward builds on our two prior phases of life as a public company. From 2019- 2023, we executed the spin from Danaher. We navigated COVID, strengthened our portfolio, and rapidly scaled Spark. This critically important phase formed the foundation of what's now Envista. In 2024, we refreshed our leadership team, adding new capabilities to supplement the strengths that were already in the organization. We developed a new value creation plan, and as we just covered, are progressing well in delivering it.
We strengthened our balance sheet and capital deployment, and all of this in combination has strengthened stakeholder confidence with our customers, with our colleagues, with the communities that we support, and hopefully with all of you. Envista is now in the next phase of performance. We're not changing direction in this phase, but rather we're building strength on strength. That means deploying the Envista business system even more deeply across the enterprise. It means further accelerating our new product momentum and translating that innovation into further share gains. It means advancing productivity initiatives to fund this growth while also expanding our capacity for disciplined capital deployment. And higher performance, of course, means higher expectations, and consistent with this, as I mentioned, we're raising the outlook. Across the next few slides, I'll outline the new LRP as well as the capabilities we're building to support the step-up. I'll begin with growth.
Innovation has long been the lifeblood of Envista. Over the past 135 years, we've had a hand in many of the most defining advances in dentistry, like inventing the now ubiquitous endodontic K-file, or dental implants, or panoramic radiographs, or both conventional and customized orthodontic systems. Our strong pipeline today is built on this firm foundation of innovation. The next slide captures just a few of the many recent launches. We've increased new product investment at a double-digit rate each of the last two years, and this has allowed us to grow R&D as a percent of sales from 3.7%- 4.2%. Some of the new programs funded by this step-up are still in development, but many of them have already launched.
Like the new Nobel S series, just six months after introduction, already accounts for about 20% of our premium implant sales, and a quarter of these have come from competitive accounts. Or the new CBCT platform from DEXIS, which has already grown to be one of Envista's largest launches across the last five years. Or ErgoZoom, a novel new loupe system that combines superior economics with adjustable magnification. Or the half dozen-plus major launches from Spark, which have allowed that business to go from zero in sales to over $300 million since our launch in 2019. The business presidents are going to say much more about these and other innovations, and those of you who joined us today are going to get a deeper dive at the innovation forum this afternoon. Innovation is the way we grow at Envista, and EBS is the way we work.
EBS is deployed throughout our enterprise and underpins all of our growth, operations, and people priorities. An even deeper deployment of EBS is driving measurable impact. Over the past two years, we put in place EBS leaders in every business, every function, and every factory. When tariff activity started heating up, for instance, in the first half of last year, we launched a number of high-impact Kaizen to nimbly rebalance our supply without impacting our industry-leading service levels. To help fund the many new growth initiatives that I just mentioned, EBS is the centerpiece of a company-wide factory productivity effort. This has supported the consolidation of three sites and the automation of many more. As inflationary pressures continue to mount, EBS underpins both our new procurement and pricing programs.
As Eric will say more about shortly, we'll generate roughly $10 million in incremental procurement savings this year, in addition to the $100 million or so in pricing benefit we've generated over the last three. Most encouraging, for all the progress we've made, we are still very far from realizing the full potential of EBS at Envista. This is by design, because that is the very nature of continuous improvement. Our third priority is people, because sustaining better performance takes even more than accelerating growth and improving operations. Most of all, it takes engaged teams, capable leaders, and a shared sense of purpose. With respect to engagement, our efforts have resulted in broad-based sequential increases in our last three annual employee surveys. This stands to reason, as stronger performance and stronger engagement go hand in hand.
On talent, we've implemented a disciplined approach to leadership development and succession planning, supported by targeted workshops and individual growth plans. More than half of leadership roles in our company right now are being filled internally, both to effectively build our bench and also to create even more meaningful career paths for our employees. We're living our purpose through the Envista Smile Project and dozens of associated activities around the world every year. Last year alone, we donated more than $2 million in cash and materials, working side by side with our customers and our partners to reach roughly 20,000 patients in underserved communities. Together, these priorities advance the high-performing continuous improvement culture that we're building. Let's now take a look at the financial outcome of this.
With respect to our medium-term outlook, we are raising three of the four metrics, core revenue, EBITDA, and EPS growth, and one, free cash flow conversion, remains unchanged at a healthy 100%. You'll see we're raising the top end of our core growth range from 4%- 5%, supported by market share momentum and a stronger new product engine. But with continued macro uncertainty, we're leaving the low end unchanged at 2%. We're shifting our entire EBITDA growth range up a point, from 4%- 7%- 5%- 8%. Expanding gross margins together with the productivity initiatives that I just outlined support our ability to grow profits even faster than sales. For adjusted EPS, we're also raising the top end of the range by a point to 11%, reflecting a combination of stronger operating performance and disciplined capital deployment.
As Eric Hammes will detail in just a moment, we'll also be laying out our balance sheet priorities. While this will give us even greater flexibility in the current environment, it will also likely come with higher interest expense. As such, we leave the bottom end of our EPS growth range unchanged at 7%. To summarize the approach, we've strengthened our capabilities, execution, and results, so we're raising our outlook as well. Let me close by bringing it back to four main points. First, in March of 2025, we communicated a value creation plan centered around three priorities of growth, operations, and people. Second, we're continuously improving our capabilities, resulting in financial performance consistently above the ranges we initially gave you. Third, it naturally follows then that we're raising our outlook.
Fourth, Envista is now in a new phase of performance, extending our momentum, advancing capabilities, and creating ever more value for all stakeholders. In summary, Envista is a stronger company today. We have greater momentum, deeper capabilities, and an even clearer path to sustained value creation. Most importantly, we're building a company that will keep getting better for our customers, our colleagues, for the communities that we work in, and for our shareholders. That's what gave us confidence to raise our medium-term outlook and to move to the next phase of Envista's performance. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Stefan Nilsson to walk us through the implants plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Paul Keel.
Stefan.
All right. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Procera. This is our home to the prosthetic and digital business unit. I am Stefan Nilsson. I am the President of the Implant Group, and I am excited to be here today with you. We want to share the progress we are making within our business, and we believe we are in a uniquely positioned global leader that is gaining momentum in the market. As we think about the opportunity ahead, I would highlight three themes that gives us confidence in our future and differentiate us within the industry. First, we are a top global player in one of the most attractive categories in dental care. Second, we are a healthier business today than we were just a few years ago, just like Paul Keel mentioned. Third, our innovation engine is back.
Together, these strengths create a powerful foundation for sustained growth, market share gain, and long-term value creation. With that context, let me start by showing how these strengths are translating into momentum across the business, and why we believe we are increasingly well-positioned to capture growth opportunities across both premium and challenger segments. Our ambition is to be the leader in the global implant market and be the preferred portfolio of brands across both the premium and challenger segments. One of our unique advantages is the strength of the Nobel Biocare brand. For decades, Nobel Biocare has always been linked with the scientific leadership, innovation, and clinical excellence. That trust extends beyond the premium segment. We believe Nobel Biocare creates a powerful halo effect for Implant Direct, Alpha-Bio Tec, Procera, and our regenerative portfolio.
As customers engage with Nobel Biocare, its strength and credibility across a broader portfolio, and helps accelerate adoption of our challenger brands. We are also seeing the benefits of recent investments. New innovations such as the S series, EmPro, SmileGrid, are beginning to gain traction, while our commercial and marketing investments are driving improved engagement with clinicians from all around the world. That momentum is important, but it becomes even more compelling when viewed against the backdrop of the market opportunity itself.
Let me spend a minute on the category and why we remain so excited about the long-term growth potential. We participate in a highly attractive, $12 billion global market that continues to grow at the mid-single digit. What is particularly attractive is where much of that growth occurs. The challenger implant segment continues to grow at a faster pace than the overall market, creating meaningful opportunities for market share expansion.
We also have two very strong challenger companies with Implant Direct and Alpha-Bio Tec, each with its own unique offering and value proposition. Overall, our portfolio is uniquely positioned to support a wide range of segments and key patient demands. We also see attractive opportunities within prosthetic and regenerative solutions. What differentiates us is our ability to participate across the entire treatment journey through a highly connected ecosystem. At the beginning of 2024, we increased annual investment by approximately $25 million. This was focused on three priorities: strengthening commercial execution, significantly expanding clinical education, and rebuilding our innovation engine. Those investments are producing results. We improved sales coverage. We also revitalized our marketing organization and the Nobel Biocare brand, expanded the number of clinicians trained, and increased investments in R&D. The chart shows the impact. Following the investments initiated in 2024, the business returned to growth in 2025.
We expect further improvements in 2026 and beyond. The key message is that this is a company gaining momentum. We have a healthier commercial foundation, a stronger customer engagement, and an innovation pipeline that is beginning to deliver. We are now focused on sustaining this trajectory, growing in line with the implant market, increasingly capturing the faster growth opportunity within our challenger segment, the prosthetic and regenerative businesses. Our improving performance is supported by more than the commercial investments. It is also supported by the breadth of our portfolio and our ability to connect solutions across the implant treatment workflow. One of our key differentiators is our ability to support clinicians across the entire implant ecosystem. We bring together the full clinical journey with one of the most comprehensive integrated digital workflows. This supports not only Nobel Biocare, but also our challenger, prosthetic, and regenerative businesses.
The broader and more connected our offering becomes, the more value we create for customers and the more opportunities we create for growth. The strategic value is important. We are not competing for just a single implant sale. We are building an ecosystem that can improve clinical predictability, reduce complexity, strengthen customer loyalty, and increase participation across the complete treatment workflow. The reason we have been able to build such a comprehensive digital workflow starts with the foundation of Nobel Biocare itself. To understand our future opportunity, it is worth reflecting on the success of our past innovations and what lies ahead. Our company holds a unique position within the industry. More than a leading implant brand, we created modern implant dentistry through the pioneering work of Professor Branemark and the discovery of osseointegration.
Over the decades, Nobel Biocare has consistently introduced innovations that have revolutionized the shape of this industry, from the development and invention of the All-on-4 protocol to the first same-day guided treatments with NobelGuide. We also introduced NobelActive, a truly disruptive new implant design that still leads the way in its innovative thread design and desirability for immediate function. This heritage matters because it continues to influence customers today, and it is the foundation we use for future innovations. We have the trust and credibility associated with being a decades-long leader in implant therapy. We are focused on the future and looking for new ways to improve clinical outcomes of our clinicians. The patient is and always will be our North Star. This is what guides our purpose and what drives us. Our goal is not simply to celebrate our history, but to leverage that heritage to drive future growth.
While we are incredibly proud of our history, we are focused on what comes next, and that starts with rebuilding the innovation engine that has historically made Nobel Biocare a leader in this industry. Innovation is fundamental to our strategy, just what Paul mentioned, and it is a critical driver for long-term growth. What is important about this pipeline is its breadth. It spans all major categories across Nobel Biocare, Implant Direct, Alpha-Bio Tec, Procera, Osteogenics, and Versah. This ensures that innovation is contributing to growth across the entire portfolio, not just a single brand or area of the business. We are investing behind the areas where we see the greatest opportunities for customer adoption, market share gain, and profitable growth. Over the last two years, we have increased focus on our R&D activity.
This has led to a 50% increase in the number of high-impact launches over the last two years. This is the table I presented to you in March 2025, showing our innovation pipeline at that time. A pipeline only creates value if it ultimately reaches the customer. Let me show you how we are translating the innovation pipeline into commercial product launches today. This slide reflects our ability to convert innovation into commercial execution. Over the past two years, we accelerated the pace of launches. Since 2024, we have increased the number of annual launches by 50%, with four meaningful launches in 2026. It is important to note that two of those four launches this year are considered high impact versus low or medium. Our Challenger business, where innovation can be meaningful differentiator, is gaining momentum as well.
We had a strong push in late 2025 with four key launches that position us well to compete for market share with more complex cases. Scanbody systems for both ABT and Implant Direct, as well as new multi-unit abutments for both systems. Implant Direct launched the DIRECTarch digital workflow while ABT added the Omni Base final abutment system. The key message is simple: Our innovation engine is delivering today while also building a foundation for future growth. Among those launches, S series is one of the best examples how we are bringing meaningful innovation to the market while driving customer adoption and competitive conversion. S series is a strong example of customer-focused innovation. Built on decades of Nobel Biocare clinical evidence, S series simplifies workflows for clinicians while maintaining the performance and predictability that customers expect from a premium franchise.
The response has exceeded our expectations, with strong adoption and meaningful competitive conversion. We view this as an important proof point that our renewed innovation strategy is translating into commercial success. Our launch of S series has started off very well. In the last quarter, S series made up 18% of Nobel implants sold across Europe and North America. Innovation for us doesn't stop at the implant itself. We are also investing across the broader treatment workflow, including prosthetic solutions that help improve clinical outcomes and customer experience. EmPro represents another example of innovation designed around customer needs. Its emergence profile design provides the clinicians and laboratories with great flexibility in managing soft tissue and achieving natural-looking aesthetic results. This is strategically important because clinicians do not judge success only whether an implant integrates. They judge success by the quality and appearance of the final restoration.
EmPro launched in Europe in the second quarter of this year. So far, we have seen fast adoption of the new product, with 58% of our customers moving over from legacy components in just the first six months. In addition, EmPro is playing a significant role in getting our prosthetic product category back to growth. It is a strong example how we can leverage previous proven technologies like Seal with a newly designed product to create a better system for clinicians and patients. As dentistry becomes increasingly digital, connecting these technologies together becomes just as important as the technologies themselves. That is where SmileGrid plays a critical role. SmileGrid is our new cloud-based workflow platform. It helps clinicians, specialists, laboratories, and treatment teams to collaborate through a connected digital environment.
Rather than forcing customers into a fixed process, it allows them to customize workflows based on the way they prefer to practice and the needs of their patients. Strategically, SmileGrid helps connect our customers to the systems and services they choose to better treat their patients. They can do this in a completely open environment with the confidence that all their data will be accessible from anywhere. They also have the security of knowing all their patient data is protected and fully HIPAA compliant. We believe this opportunity is particularly compelling within our Challenger portfolio, where clinicians increasingly expect easy-to-adopt digital solutions that improve efficiency and enhance customer engagement. Beyond digital workflows, we are also expanding our portfolio through strategic acquisitions and highly differentiated technologies. Versah is a great example of that approach in action. Versah is an excellent example of how we are expanding our portfolio through differentiated technologies.
Earlier this year, we completed the full acquisition of the business and began integration activities in May. Since then, we have expanded commercial reach from three primarily education-focused representatives to more than 300 implant and regenerative sales representatives across our premium and Challenger business. The business is performing well, tracking toward double-digit growth by year-end while generating attractive margins. Beyond the financial opportunity, Versah strengthens our position in implant surgery and creates additional cross-selling opportunities across implants and regenerative solutions. Technology alone is not enough. Adoption requires education, clinical confidence, and scientific validation. That's why our partnerships with the clinical community remain such an important strategic advantage. Education remains a critical part of our growth strategy. Our partnership with the Foundation for Oral Rehabilitation supports global clinical education, scientific advancement, and leadership development.
This is valuable across all our businesses because education helps drive adoption, improve clinical confidence, and expand access to implant treatment. We are very excited to see momentum and interest-building with the foundation. In 2026, we will launch a new council in Turkey, and we have plans to expand to India in 2027. These councils provide a framework for local education, humanitarian support, as well as scientific research platforms for local clinicians. Our partnership with FOR is just one part of a much broader commitment to education, which continues to be one of the most important drivers of customer engagement and long-term growth. Education has always been one of Nobel Biocare's greatest strength. By supporting clinicians throughout their professional journey, we help accelerate adoption of implants, prosthetics, regenerative solutions, and digital workflows.
As more clinicians enter implant dentistry globally, education becomes an important growth engine that supports procedure growth and expands our customer base. As you can see from the slide, our investments in 2024 have yielded strong results in this area. Significant growth in the last two years has resulted in a 10X increase in the number of clinicians trained around the globe. This forms a strong foundation for future growth. When our customer grow, we grow with them. While innovation and education create demand, sustainable growth also requires strong execution. Paul spoke about EBS. EBS is helping us to become a more focused and disciplined organization. Alongside innovation, EBS is helping us improve execution across businesses. Our focus area include go-to-market effectiveness, supply chain agility, pricing discipline, and manufacturing optimization. These efforts helps us scale our businesses while improving efficiency and profitability.
When we bring innovation, education, commercial execution, and operational excellence together, we create something much more powerful than individual products. We create a complete solution for our customers. What differentiates us is not simply having a strong premium implant franchise. We have built a portfolio that spans premium implants, challenger implants, regenerative biomaterials, prosthetics, digital workflows, and clinical education. The strength of Nobel Biocare creates credibility across that portfolio, enabling us to drive adoption across multiple customer segments and geographies. We believe specifically that our challenger and regenerative businesses represent some of the most significant opportunities to accelerate growth in the years ahead. Let me close by bringing everything together and highlighting why we believe this business is exceptional well-positioned for the future. First, we participate in an attractive and growing market with significant unmet patient need and substantial room for expansion.
Second, we have built a uniquely advantaged position through our premium challenger, prosthetic, regenerative, and digital portfolios. We believe the strength of Nobel Biocare can continue to create a halo effect that accelerates growth across the broader portfolio. Third, we have a clear growth strategy centered around innovation, commercial excellence, education, and operational discipline. Combined with the strength of the Nobel Biocare brand and a revitalized innovation pipeline, we believe we are well-positioned to deliver sustainable growth, margin expansion, and long-term value creation. Thank you. I would like now to introduce Veronica, who will tell you about the orthodontic business within Envista.
Thank you. Thank you, Stefan. Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here to share the work we are doing to extend Envista's leadership in orthodontics. As you all know, Ormco is a business of Envista that has a significant potential for accelerated growth and a compelling opportunity to further transform the orthodontic market. The market in which we compete is attractive. Orthodontics is a large, approximately $7 billion global category growing at a mid-single digit rate with a long runway for further growth because of the substantial number of unserved patients globally. With 65 years of experience and a legacy of introducing many of the foundational and best-known innovations in orthodontics, we are distinctively positioned to serve orthodontists. Ormco is a global market leader with a differentiated digital platform designed to address needs of both patients and clinicians.
We have a strong presence in fixed appliances, traditionally known as bracket and wires, and in clear aligners, a category with a significant growth potential. We are the leaders in self-ligating appliances, a treatment modality within bracket and wires that offers more predictable treatments with greater efficiency and comfort. Spark, one of the best and fastest-growing aligner products in the market, is a product that we developed through internal R&D and successfully launched only about seven years ago. These strong products, served by an extensive clinical education and leading digital orthodontic treatment platform, are here for success. We have demonstrated a track record of profitability growth. Ormco is one of Envista's most important profit drivers. Our Spark business just turned profitable last year, and within seven years have achieved global sales of more than $300 million.
We intend to sustain this promising trajectory of growth and profitability over the coming years. We believe this market offers significant opportunity. About half of the world's population suffers from malocclusions. With over 600 million who would benefit from orthodontic treatment and have the ability to pay, only approximately 21 million begin treatment every year, almost 3.5% of the estimated addressable market. Evolving treatment modalities and channel expansion are helping to address several barriers for treatment, including concerns of appearance, the need for more predictable and shorter treatment times, and affordability, particularly in minor or relapse cases. Of the approximately 21 million annual cases starts, about 75% continue to be using bracket and wires, and 25% use aligners. Although some general dentists have expanded into orthodontics care over the past decades, orthodontists still represent approximately three out of every four cases.
They have the most specialized training and experience in tooth movement, and Ormco remains focused in serving this specialty. The introduction of clear aligners more than 25 years ago represented a major breakthrough in orthodontics. It significantly expanded interest among adults, an unserved population seeking aesthetic, more comfortable treatments, and a modality that fits their lifestyle. Despite the growth of aligners, most teenagers are still being treated with bracket and wires. Teen patients can be less compliant with removable appliances, and fixed appliances are widely accepted because many of their peers are still treated with bracket and wires as well. Within bracket and wires, the principal modalities includes traditional twin brackets and self-ligating systems, such as our Damon franchise. Self-ligating systems are the fastest-growing modality, offering a more predictable treatment with greater efficiency and comfort.
Similarly, clear aligners span a range of options designed for complex and simple cases, early intervention, and expanded indications. In recent years, both bracket and wires and clear aligners have expanded their use of digital treatment planning. Aligner treatment is fully supported by digital planning and customized trays, and the resulting data will continue to improve treatment predictability. In bracket and wires, digital adoption is growing and enabling more customized treatments, but it remains still in early stages and represents a meaningful opportunity for further transformation. We believe Ormco is positioned to lead in digital orthodontics. Ormco has a well-defined business model that we use to compete and win in this category. First, our training and education. We collaborate with an extensive network of key opinion leaders and clinicians to communicate the science behind our treatment options.
Last year, our team and clinical experts delivered more than 3,000 educational events, reaching over 50,000 clinicians. Second, our global reach. Our commercial scale extends to more than 120 markets, with direct sales supported by more than 500 commercial resources that represent our complete portfolio. Third, our innovation. Our R&D and product management continues to advance both modalities of bracket and wires and aligners, with a particular focus on digitalizing both modalities through our Ormco DTX platform. Third, our comprehensive offering. We support more than 2 million cases annually. Ormco is differentiated as one of the largest orthodontic product companies. We are unique because we have a scale leading position in both clear aligners and bracket and wires.
With a strong and resilient bracket and wire business supporting the needs of a stable teen orthodontic market and a leading growing aligner that has grown and captured share every year since launch. We are clearly a market leader positioned to serve orthodontists, the clinical segment that delivers today more than 75% of orthodontic treatments globally. One of the most exciting opportunities that we have is to leverage our digital platform to plan treatment and help clinicians select the best solution for patients. Our digital platform was initially developed to plan treatment with the Spark aligners. Last year, we launched StageRx, a groundbreaking visual treatment planning platform for Spark that improves treatment predictability, reduces design time, and simplifies workflows for orthodontists. This platform now can not only support aligners and retainers, but also treatment planning for bracket and wires.
This year, we have expanded our Ormco Digital Bonding within the platform to include our full range of brackets. This single platform, supporting both aligners and bracket and wires, creates an opportunity for new hybrid treatment approaches that combines modalities within a single case, an area that we are actively developing. This is the power of our portfolio. With leading offerings in both bracket and wires and clear aligners supported by one digital platform, we can help clinicians choose the treatment approach that fits better patient needs. We are not constrained to a single modality that may not be appropriate in every case. Around this platform, we are also building a comprehensive ecosystem to better orchestrate and simplify clinicians' workflows. With Ormco and Envista's portfolio and integrating partnerships, we plan to cover across all workflow stages, supporting all treatment modalities through one Ormco DTX platform.
We continue to expand partnerships, creating open, integrated orthodontic ecosystem that simplifies clinicians' work and supports greater treatment predictability, shorter treatment times, and a superior patient experience. When it comes to product innovation, we take our inspiration from the orthodontic experts we serve. Ormco has a long history of introducing game-changing products and treatment modalities. Our 65-year legacy of innovation spans the breadth of our portfolio. Ormco pioneered with straight wire appliances, helping clinicians position teeth more precisely and introducing a series of advancements in self-ligating appliances. We also have been pioneers in customized treatments. In the recent years, we mobilized our teams to build a compelling clear aligner offering, leading to the introduction of Spark, while continuing to advance our bracket and wires through our Damon Ultima and ultimately our Ormco Digital Bonding.
These solutions are designed to improve control of tooth movement, bracket placement accuracy efficient, and patient experience. Some of our latest innovations include the introduction of Spark On-Demand, Spark Retainers, Ormco EtchFree, an innovative orthodontic adhesive system that eliminates the need for acid etching during bracket and attachment bonding, Spark Junior with the BiteSync, Ormco's clear aligner solution designed for growing patients, a two-phase orthodontic treatment for early interception combining the proven performance of Spark aligners with BiteSync, class two correction supporting healthy development, jaw correction, and tooth alignment in a single workflow, and StageRx. This year, we expect to deliver close to $75 million from products that we have introduced in the last three years. We are orthodontic experts with an unmatched record of innovation and one of the industry's most complete offerings for both patients and clinicians.
We are leading the way towards faster, more efficient treatments, and improved outcomes. With a strong innovation pipeline, Ormco is well-positioned to accelerate growth and shape the future of orthodontics. Continuing to drive Spark growth is our first priority. We are gaining share and with a 10% revenue CAGR growing faster than the market. Since Spark's introduction, we have surpassed more than 1.4 million cases globally. We plan to continue to build on the success of gaining share among patients that are treated with clear aligners by doing two things. One, our relentless focus on expanding customer reach, strengthening our commercial execution. We will continue to prioritize markets in Europe and North America, expanding our partnerships in orthodontic practices and DSOs, but also further penetrating and entering in new high-potential geographies.
Like this year, we just introduced Spark in Japan, and are all being supported by an increased investment in our education. The second piece of growing our Spark is increasing utilization through expansion of our portfolio with new products, with more in our pipeline. As I mentioned earlier, we recently introduced Spark 35, Spark On-Demand, BiteSync, Spark Junior, and StageRx, and there's many more introductions that we're planning to support the growth in this category. We achieved profitability last year for Spark, and will continue to drive Spark towards greater profitability, supported by our efforts of our operations team and the Envista business system. Over the past 12 quarters, we have reduced the cost per aligner by approximately 40%. This progress reflects our team's use of Envista business systems to drive continuous improvement.
Our improvement of efforts have focused on further automating our production lines and increasing our case design productivity. With major production facilities across three continents, we have a differentiated model for scaling automation. At a pilot plant near our California headquarters, engineers identify opportunities, test and refine processes, and then deploy proven improvements across our global production network. This enables consistent, continuous improvement, and we have an ambitious plan to continue to improve Spark's cost position and service levels. Our roadmap includes further manufacturing automation, expanded case design automation, optimization of our global footprint, and additional material cost improvements. In summary, I am excited about the opportunities that is ahead of us. The orthodontic market is large, with a substantial unserved population around the world.
Ormco has expanded market and margin position every single year over the past seven years, and we will continue to be one of Envista's most important profit drivers. We believe we are distinctively positioned to continue to be a market leader serving orthodontists under a differentiated platform designed to address needs of all patients and clinicians. With Damon, we will lead and will continue to lead the self-ligating appliances, the fastest-growing modality within bracket and wires. With Spark, we have one of the industry's leading and fastest-growing clear aligner offerings, both supported by a single leading digital treatment planning offering. While we drive growth, we continue to have significant opportunities to improve design and manufacturing efficiency to improve margins. We believe we have a great capabilities, a clear plan, and the right team to deliver continuous innovation, growth, profitability, and operational improvements.
With that, I will finish my presentation, and now I will hand it over to Filippo. Thank you.
Thank you. Well, thank you, Veronica, and good morning, everyone. It is great to be here. Let me start with a quick introduction. I have been with the organization for over two decades. I was part of the very first acquisition that Danaher made in dental to build the platform that eventually became Envista. Since last July, I stepped into a new role leading our consumables organization. Over the last year, we have changed our posture on this business, assuming a more growth-oriented mindset. Over the next few minutes, I would like to talk about the market opportunity, how we win, but also why we believe the runway ahead for consumables is meaningful. Consumables is at the heart of dentistry.
Every day, our products support the clinical workflows that keep dental practices moving, preparing for new patient visit, preventing infections, restoring dentition, helping clinician deliver consistent outcomes for patients. That everyday relevance is important. These are not occasional procedures. They are recurring treatments that clinicians perform every day, creating a stable and resilient demand fundamentals. On this slide, there are three ideas that I would like you to keep in mind. First, demand for everyday dental treatment is steady. Demographic trends like aging population, the expansion of the middle class in emerging market, these trends support demand for routine and preventive procedures. In addition, we continue to see interest in aesthetic and early treatments, and at the same time, infection prevention remains an important aspect in clinical environments. Second, we are a trusted leader in consumables.
Our heritage spans over 135 years with a track record of category-defining innovation, from the very first in-office furnace solution to manufacture crowns, to the invention of the K-file, still used today in endodontic procedures, to a series of dental innovation in material science. Today, we hold leading positions in some of the most differentiated consumable segments. Positions that are supported by clinical evidence, customer trust, and brands that clinicians know well. Metrex adds another important dimension to our leadership. Our surface disinfectants are among the most mentioned in dental equipment instructions for use. Third, we have multiple opportunities to drive sustainable growth in consumables. We see opportunities for additional share gain by delivering a steady cadence of innovation, and we see opportunities to expand in under-penetrated segment, as well as geographies. What I would like you to take away here is the combination.
Stability by itself is attractive, but stability combined with differentiated positions in multiple growth levers is what makes this business compelling in the entire Envista portfolio. With this framework in mind, let's look at the size of the market opportunity. The starting point is the scale of the clinical need. This marks the importance of what we do, but also speaks to the economic opportunity as a leading player in consumables. According to estimates from the World Health Organization, 3.5 billion people suffer from oral diseases, and only 2 billion people see a dentist each year. 2 billion patients create a large recurring base of preventive, restorative, endodontic, and routine treatments, and yet, we have clear opportunities to treat more patients and expand our patient population over time. In parallel, infection prevention remains a significant need across healthcare environments. Today, one in 10 patients is affected by a healthcare-associated infection.
While emerging economies are more affected, mature ones are not excluded. in the U.S. alone, the economic burden of such infection is estimated to be up to $45 billion per year. Together, this needs support a $10 billion addressable market for dental categories in which we participate. An important point is not just the size of the market, it's where the opportunity sits relative to our current position. Today, roughly 2/3 of our consumable business is in North America, while more than 60% of the total addressable market is outside of North America. This creates meaningful opportunities and wide space for us to expand overseas. It does not mean going after every market. It means being selective about the segment and countries where our brands, clinical evidence, and educational models gives us the right to win.
For instance, just last month, we have taken the first steps to relaunch and establish a consumable presence in the fast-growing Indian market. As we look at the total market, our opportunity is twofold. Continue building share in the core North American market while expanding our presence in attractive international markets. Market opportunity matters, obviously, but only if there's a clear business model able to capture it. Let me cover that next. Our model begins with innovation. We have strong R&D capabilities that allow us to develop differentiated clinical solutions. In restorative and endodontics, that means solution designed to improve performance, predictability of clinical outcomes, without compromising on workflow simplicity. In infection prevention, it means formulation that are designed to address pathogens of concerns as well as evolving requirements. The second element of our winning formula is training and education.
A differentiated product has value only when clinicians understands how to use it with confidence and when they can see how it improves their daily work. Our network of key expert learning platforms, educational tools, as well as events help translate product performance into clinical confidence and product adoption. We continue to evolve and expand our offering in training and education from tailored educational programs to larger events like the sold-out Kerr Summit in Lisbon in October. The third element is about brands and partnerships. Our brands have earned the trust of clinicians. They have established credibility in their respective segments. This, combined to our global network of trained, highly specialized, and experienced distribution partners, helps us extend our reach in the marketplace. Our partners helps us connect innovation in education with customers. Those three capabilities reinforce one another.
Innovation gives our sales organization a stronger product, a stronger story to tell. Education gives clinician confidence. Our partnerships allows us to scale our value proposition around the world. The result is not only commercial, but most importantly, it makes a difference for clinicians and patients. Every year, our restorative solutions help transform more than 30 million smiles. Every year, our infection prevention solutions contribute to more than 500 million patient visits taking place in a safer environment. These figures makes the model tangible. Behind each number is a clinician completing a procedure with confidence, a patient receiving care, and a workflow supported by products that have earned trust over time. Not all consumables categories are created equal and not all have the same attractiveness. We are positioned where differentiation matters most. On the left of this slide, you can see two categories, restorative materials and surface disinfection.
These are our two largest consumable categories. Together, they represent more than 70% of our business. Adhesive, cements, and composite are critical to the clinical outcome and to the longevity of our restorative treatments. Clinicians evaluate these materials based on science, handling, predictability, and confidence. In the U.S. market, branded product represent more than 95% of the category. Clinicians gravitate towards brands solution that they've learned to incorporate into their workflows. We have a very strong portfolio of product brands in these categories. Names like OptiBond, Harmonize, Maxcem, are among the most trusted and premium solution in this market segment. In surface disinfection, formulations have unique properties. They are incorporated into clinical protocols, and they are carefully validated through equipment IFUs. Here again, the category is predominantly branded at approximately 90% of the entire U.S. market.
Our portfolio includes the dental market most popular brands in surface disinfection, CaviWipes and CaviCide. Now, compare those categories with others that are more commoditized. Disposable gloves, for instance. Gloves are more price sensitive, are more prone to switching. Private label represent most of the market, and Envista does not have a product in this category. This comparison is strategically important. Our portfolio is concentrated in segment where clinical performance and workflow sensitivity influence the purchasing decision. One of the ways we sustain our differentiation and our premium positioning is through a consistent cadence of innovation. This slide shows the breadth of our recent innovation across four parts of our portfolio. In infection prevention, CaviWipes and CaviCide HP use hydrogen peroxide technology to enable faster, simpler disinfection. The platform is also positioned for evolving pathogens concerns through its EPA Emerging Viral Pathogen designation.
We have launched our HP formulation in the popular wipe canister format first and gone through the routine EPA and state-by-state approval, which was completed middle of last year. Now we have switched our focus towards expanding the HP portfolio with ready-to-use packaging solutions. HP has been a wonderful addition to our product portfolio formulation, especially in clinical environments dedicated to young and elderly patients. In April, we launched the DemiPro Curing Light. Dental practices spend more than $3 billion a year in dental materials that rely on light curing to be properly set in place. DemiPro combines a leading curing performance with a lighter, more ergonomic experience. Its 360 rotating tip gives maximum freedom. Its trans-illumination tip expands the application of the light outside of the traditional curing function by providing a simple yet powerful vision aid to identifying areas that need attention.
In April, we have also launched ZenSeal Pro, a product designed to provide durable seal during root canal procedures. ZenSeal Pro provides advanced bioceramic chemistry, compatibility with all obturation techniques, while ensuring elevated levels of pH to help create a favorable environment for the success of the root canal procedure. These premium material properties are combined with a new dispensing tip, which is designed to minimize waste and allow for more root canals treated per syringe compared to similar competitive solutions. ZenSeal Pro expands our endodontic portfolio into a multi-million dollar segment, bioceramic sealers, that is mostly new to Kerr, providing good market gain opportunities. And finally, in magnification loupes. ErgoZoom, launched last September, is among the very first to offer an ergonomic optical system with the convenience of variable magnification. ErgoZooms allow clinicians to work in a more upright posture while adjusting magnification to the task at hand.
These are different products in different categories, but the innovation logic is consistent. Identifying a meaningful customer problem, create a clinically differentiated solution, and launch it with the educational and commercial discipline needed to drive adoption. The customer comments on this slide bring that logic to life. They speak to those practical benefits that our customers enjoy in the everyday use of these products. EBS is central to our value creation story in consumables, so let me illustrate that with three examples. First, in manufacturing, our challenge was optimizing our manufacturing footprint, improve factory productivity. Our team, using EBS tools, simplified the global manufacturing footprint, going from nine through six sites in just three years, and streamlined the distribution of our products around three global distribution centers, greatly simplifying how we work with distributor partners. The second example is in sales and marketing.
Our opportunity was to improve targeting, increase win rates, and expand share of wallet. Again, several EBS tools have been instrumental in our improvement journey. Our team have improved account targeting, created greater visibility to the sales organization, and strengthened training and education tools. The new Kerr learning management system, for instance, allows us to provide flexible educational pathways to clinicians and DSO organization, using a combination of online and offline tools. Third, EBS in innovation. The opportunity at hand was about expanding the funnel of innovation ideas, accelerating the pace of innovation, and ultimately increase the commercial impact of our new product launches. Once again, EBS tools have helped improve our launch revenueness, and over the last years, we have seen over 30% increase in the revenue impact of innovation. The recent Demi Pro launch is one of the latest examples of EBS in action.
Just in the first three months since product introduction, the new product was able to triple our share position in this category. So in summary, let me leave you with three conclusions. First, we operate in a large and attractive $10 billion consumables market with stable recurring demand, and we have opportunities to expand our presence in strategic segment as well as key geographies. Second, we hold a leadership position in differentiated segments. This is supported by trusted brands, a portfolio with strong clinical evidence, and an ever-productive innovation engine. Our innovation, combined with our training and education offering and key opinion leader network, allow customers to incorporate our solution in their clinical workflows with confidence. And finally, EBS, it gives us a repeatable operating system that improves how we innovate, how we manufacture, how we commercialize our solutions, and ultimately, how we support customers and distribution partners.
As I mentioned at the beginning, consumables is at the heart of dentistry, and we are excited about the role that we can play in the Envista portfolio and its value creation story. With that, let me introduce you to Robert to talk about diagnostics. Thank you.
Thanks. Good morning. It is great to be here with all of you. My name is Robert Befidi, and I lead the diagnostics business at Envista. A couple of comments about my background. Over the past 30 years, I have held leadership roles across industrial, diversified healthcare technology, private equity, and consulting organizations. My academic background spans software engineering, finance, marketing, and operations management. I joined Envista in late 2023 and have been focused on advancing our diagnostics portfolio and growth strategy. Diagnostics is the equipment business of Envista. It is a global leader in dental imaging and diagnostics. In the coming 15-20 minutes, I will make three points. First, we participate in an attractive category. Second, we offer one of the industry's most comprehensive imaging and diagnostics portfolios.
Third, with more than 70 years in the business, we have built a large install base that we are converting into a durable ecosystem advantage across hardware, AI-powered software, clinical workflows, and services. Let me start with the business at a glance. There are three ideas on this slide, and they frame the rest of our presentation. First, digital dentistry adoption is driving growth. Imaging and diagnostics is a $3.5 billion category with growth coming from areas where we are strongest, namely increased adoption of digital imaging equipment, software, and services. Critically, the marketplace is moving towards integrated solutions where our connected ecosystem gives us a competitive advantage. Second, DEXIS is a leader in units in service and in innovation. We hold the number one share position in dental imaging in North America.
Globally, we have more than 450,000 devices and workstations in service across more than 50,000 dental offices in 128 countries. DTX Studio Clinic, our software that integrates all modalities of dental imaging, is a leader in AI-assisted diagnosis, treatment planning, collaboration, and patient communication. Third, we have a clear plan for profitable growth. Our differentiated solutions are built for diagnostic confidence, productivity, and simplicity in the clinic. In diagnostics, like in all Envista businesses, EBS continues to be the engine underneath both growth, margin expansion, and fundamentally our culture. Let me take those points in order, beginning with the category. The diagnostics category has three primary segments. 2D and 3D imaging, about $1.5 billion. This segment has been flat. Intraoral scanners, about $1 billion, growing low single digit, and software and services, about $1 billion, growing high single digits. We actively participate in all three segments.
Now let me show you how our portfolio and execution are translating into performance. This chart shows the performance journey of the diagnostics business. Revenues declined in 2023 and 2024, driven largely by portfolio and geography exits, as well as post-COVID market normalization. The imaging market began to recover in the second half of 2025, and that recovery has continued into 2026. At the same time, we started to turn the business around and return to growth in late 2025 and in the first half of 2026, core growth has averaged double digit. Those gains were driven by innovation across the portfolio, stronger operational and commercial execution, growth in software and services, and disciplined price positioning. The key message is that we move from decline to stabilization and then to growth with both market recovery and our own execution contributing to the improvement.
With that performance context, let me describe the composition of the business. Our business is concentrated in attractive parts of the market and benefits from a broad route to customers. By geography, 75% of our business is in North America. By solution, hardware represents 73% of revenue, while software and services represent 27%. Our strategy is to increase the recurrent revenue contribution from software and services while sustaining leadership in hardware. By channel, 77% of our revenue flows through distribution, 23% is direct. We work very well with distribution and have long-lasting partnerships globally as they provide reach, local expertise, service coverage across thousands of practices. Our direct business is mostly software and services. Our portfolio is an integrated and connected ecosystem that supports dental imaging and diagnostics modality, whether it be 2D X-ray, 3D X-ray, intraoral scans or intraoral pictures, or generally pictures of patients.
We go to market primarily through the DEXIS brand with i-CAT, an iconic CBCT brand, and DTX Studio, our hardware-agnostic software platform. The scale of that ecosystem is one of our most important advantages. Let's talk about our impact on dentistry. DEXIS powers modern dentistry at scale, and this slide shows the reach of our platform. Each year, clinicians use our technology in more than 150 million patient cases, capture more than 0.5 Billion images, transfer data to more than 100 practice management systems, and seamlessly connect to roughly 10,000 labs. We also made a deliberate choice to remain open. Our software can read images from third-party imaging systems, allowing clinicians to bring more of their diagnostic information into one workflow. Two numbers deserve particular attention. First, our AI capabilities help clinicians detect more than 180 million 2D and 3D AI diagnostics annually.
Second, our platform supports tens of millions of specialty procedures each year. Our implant planning software helped plan more than 3 million implants last year alone. To understand why this footprint matters, consider where DEXIS sits in the clinical workflow. Paul mentioned the three steps of each clinical procedure. Whether a simple restoration or a complex full-arch reconstruction, they all follow the same three steps, generally speaking, scan, plan, and treat. Scan is capture and diagnosis. We bring CBCT intraoral scanning and 2D X-ray in one suite, enhanced by 2D and 3D AI diagnostics, MagicAssist automated case setup, and SmartFocus tooth level navigation across all modalities. Plan is AI-assisted treatment planning.
We support automated implant planning, endodontic diagnostics, orthodontic planning with Spark, and collaboration with labs, clinicians, and patients, as well as workflow integration for prosthetic production, whether it is milling or 3D printing, chair side, or with lab partners. We also in this step provide case presentation, patient communication tools to assist clinician with case acceptance. Treat is clinical execution. We provide the diagnostics information and workflow connections clinicians use to execute the treatment plan. DEXIS is a leader in scan and plan, the first two steps. That position is upstream of everything else. Everything starts with diagnostics. Our systems capture data and are used before treatments decisions get made. That means every downstream vendor, whether for a restoration, an implant, an aligner, or a lab, consumes output from DEXIS. Other Envista businesses are leaders in treat, the third step.
Here is the operating playbook that we use to extend that advantage. Our operating thesis is straightforward. Deliver differentiated diagnostic solutions through diagnostic confidence, productivity and simplicity. Those are the outcomes our customers value, so they are how we organize the business. On growth, we're building the best-in-class imaging and diagnostics ecosystem for clinicians and patients, building strength on strength through a robust hardware new product cadence, supported by training and education, services, software, and lasting partnerships. On operational excellence, we are modernizing processes to create productivity and operating leverage. This includes margin expansion through efficiency and automation, manufacturing and supply chain footprint actions, including insourcing and agentic AI across sales, customer experience, and support. On people, we are accelerating the mindset and capability shift required for an AI-adapted work environment. That means global talent development and deeper capabilities in EBS, process automation and generative AI.
Now let me show the architecture that connects our priorities. I want to be precise about how this ecosystem is built because its architecture is a core competitive advantage. Imaging hardware is the foundation. Every other capability in the ecosystem, including image visualization, AI diagnostics, clinical workflow, treatment planning, training, and support, depend on high-fidelity images across 2D X-ray, 3D X-ray, and intraoral scanning. That dependency runs in one direction. You can build software on excellent images, you cannot build trustworthy AI on unreliable ones. More than seven years of imaging leadership, more than 450,000 deployed devices and workstation, and integrated modalities give us the foundation to turn our ecosystem into a durable advantage. We continue to strengthen that foundation through a robust cadence of innovation.
Over the past four years, looking across two reinforcing layers, driving diagnostic hardware and the AI-powered solutions that run on it, here are the things that we've done. On diagnostic hardware, we have advanced every imaging modality. That includes Imprevo, our new intraoral scanner, Ti2, our new 2D X-ray sensor, the ORTHOPANTOMOGRAPH OP 3D EX, our new CBCT with automated X-ray dose control, and coming later this month, CBCT motion correction across all our ORTHOPANTOMOGRAPH OP 3D CBCT models, and the NOMAD Pro 2, our handheld 2D X-ray generator. On AI-powered software, we have introduced DEXassist for 2D AI diagnostics, 3D AI-driven surgical guide design, IS ScanFlow 2.0 with GPU support, the DTX Studio Clinic Implant module, and this year, DTX Studio Clinic 4.7 with 14 2D AI diagnostic detections. In the coming months, we will launch DTX Studio Clinic endodontic module, DEXIS Cloud 2D imaging, and IOS Cloud.
Notice the two rows move together. Every hardware release opens capabilities that the software complements, offering an unparalleled platform for imaging and diagnostics in dentistry. This innovation has also been recognized externally, including Cellerant, Best of Class, Dental Townie Awards, from 2023 to 2025, and most recently, in 2025, Most Improved IOS and People's Choice Award. Let me go deeper on how hardware and AI come together to create diagnostic confidence. The organizing concept is the DEXIS digital patient model. High clinical fidelity 2D X-ray, 3D X-ray, and intraoral scan data, combined with intelligent software and AI in one model of the patient to support downstream clinical decisions. We talked about the criticality of our hardware image quality across all modalities.
Our latest hardware breakthrough innovations include the ORTHOPANTOMOGRAPH OP 3D LX and EX for next-generation 3D imaging, Imprevo for GPU-powered intraoral scanning, and the NOMAD Pro 3 for improved handheld 2D image quality with an unwavering focus on clinician safety. This product has 10x less rear-directed radiation leakage than the leading competitor. Unique to our offering, on top of that hardware foundation, FDA-cleared 2D and 3D AI diagnostics are built directly into the platform. Our solution does full-mouth AI detection of an entire X-ray series in less than 5 seconds. That is industry-leading in workflow efficiency with about 18 images processed in less than 5 seconds. We automatically detect 14 FDA-cleared dental findings on every intraoral radiograph, enabling clinicians to review cases quickly. We do one-click perio analysis that measures bone height levels and compares with previous exams.
With 2D AI, we do tooth segmentation that allows clinician to present cases in color, turning clinical terms into visuals that help patients understand why they should act now. For example, showing how caries progress from enamel to dentin and to pulp. With 3D AI, we segment various landmarks on the CBCT volume, including the upper and lower jaw, teeth, airway, and nerve canal. AI also automatically traces pan curves from 3D volumes. This AI capability enable clinicians to automate previously manual cases, particularly the setup steps, and quickly move into chairside treatment planning. Ultimately, we have a comprehensive imaging and diagnostics platform that integrates all modalities of imaging into one DEXIS digital patient model with AI running across all of it. When we apply that intelligence to complex treatment planning, we have the following examples of workflows.
At DEXIS, we believe we have the most comprehensive suite of clinical AI in dentistry. On the left is our AI-powered implant workflow. MagicAssist automates CBCT setup, SmartFusion aligns CBCT and intraoral scans. Clinicians can virtually extract teeth and generate a surgical guide, then place the implant in one click. From an extensive virtual library of implants and abutment libraries, they can connect their treatment plan to 3D printing, robotic surgery, and labs. Scan to plan for implants in under 3 minutes versus more than 90 minutes using traditional methods. This is a massive productivity gain for specialists and generalists alike. On the right, and new this year, we have AI-powered endodontic workflow in DTX Studio Clinic. It combines advanced 3D visualization and AI-assisted canal mapping with trajectory and length calculation in a single click.
Endodontics is the highest variability procedure in dentistry, and we're taking the guesswork out of it. These practical examples of AI embedded in the clinical workflow, turning high-quality data diagnostics into faster and more confident treatment planning. Let's talk about EBS, and let me connect the strategy to the operating system that helps us execute. EBS is how we run our business. This is how we turn strategy into results. I'll walk through a couple of examples in R&D, operations, and commercial execution. In R&D, EBS is helping us build better products faster, fewer parts, more efficient manufacturing, and stronger quality outcomes from day one. We've had a 25% improvement in new product interaction velocity and cycle time improvements of more than 75%. In operations, EBS is helping us eliminate waste, standardizing processes, and creating more value for customers.
We have had more than 19% improvement in global factory productivity, and year to date, improve working capital turns in the Envista management system. Commercial execution, EBS drives disciplined execution, stronger customer engagement, and market share gains. Ultimately, it starts with our people, and it's the way we work, creating a network that scales continuous improvement across the business and compounds year over year. In closing, three things to take away. First, the category, second, our position, and third, our strategy. The category, a $3.5 billion category, growing low to mid-single digit through the cycle, with service and software outpacing hardware and customers increasingly wanting fewer vendors and integrated workflow. That consolidation favors incumbents who have scale, and that is us. We hold the number one share in dental imaging in North America. Globally, we have more than 450,000 devices and workstations across more than 50,000 clinics in 128 countries.
We have the leading 2D and 3D AI diagnostics and treatment planning software in use globally. Third, our strategy. We will continue hardware innovation across every modality, capture recurring revenue from the install base with services and subscription, and scale AI-powered software on the cloud. We have the install base, the innovation, the plan to capture profitable growth. Rather than take my word for it, I would like you to hear from a clinician. Dr. Greg Gillespie is a key opinion leader that works with us. He owns Gillespie Dentistry, and he runs the DEXIS ecosystem in his practice every day. Let's roll the video.
My name is Dr. Greg Gillespie, and I work here at Gillespie Dentistry. DTX Studio Clinic is amazing because it's essentially everything imaging in one platform. It's so easy. It's seamless. It looks like I know what I'm doing. Just today, I had a patient come in. She was coming in for a cosmetic consult, and she knew that she didn't like a tooth that was dark, but she didn't know why. I pulled up all of her images. So quickly, you could see on a 2D periapical image, because it was colorized, that there was an apical lesion up there. You could see it on the 3D image clearly, and on the 2D image. You could see it everywhere so easily. Guess what the patient said to me?
She said, "I never knew why there was a problem with my tooth, but now I can see it so clearly on these images what's going on." She was diagnosing for me the problem with her tooth. That's what I love about DTX Studio Clinic. It actually delivers what it says it can do.
Thank you for your time. Now let me hand it over to Eric, who will walk through our financial performance and opportunities.
It's great to get out of the front row seat of the movie theater. Robert, let me just say thank you. It's wonderful to see the value that our DEXIS business is generating for customers, and also about the integration of comprehensive digital solutions across all of Envista. I hope you all see that. Good morning, everyone. I'll take a moment to wrap us up, take us through the financial portion of our day, which will mostly be a continuation of the journey that we've been on for the last few years. In short, I think what you'll see is we continue to turn our recent investments into strong business performance, but always with an opportunity to go further, as you heard earlier from Paul. Let's just start with a quick look back at the foundation that we've built over the last few years.
As you all well know, our first capital allocation priority is organic growth. That's given the strong margins across our portfolio. Over the last two years, we've fed that growth engine in several different ways by investing at R&D levels with double-digit growth, coupled with high single-digit increases in commercial front end, while elevating our manufacturing capability and regional self-sufficiency through strong double-digit growth in CapEx. As a result of all of this, our core growth has performed at or above market while building momentum for a sustainable future growth, as you heard earlier from Paul. All of these investments, importantly, were enabled in large part by the space and productivity that we delivered within our business. That's thanks to things like manufacturing automation, G&A efficiencies, and most recently, pricing execution. Our overall financial performance over the last few years has been equally strong.
We've been able to deliver consistently at or above our guidance expectations. But importantly, we've been able to drive profit growth and earnings growth above the rate of sales growth. All in based on our 2026 guide, our adjusted EBITDA is projected to improve approximately 40% over the last two years, with EPS growing even faster, and our cash position remains flexible and strong at over $1.1 billion. As you've also seen, we've strengthened our balance sheet and begun to deploy capital more effectively and actively. Our net leverage ratio reflects the health of our operations. We've rebuilt our M&A pipeline, and we've recently deployed capital towards a few smaller but important acquisitions in the implant space that's helped Stefan's business to improve its geographic reach and also accelerate its growth.
Lastly, we've added a third leg to our capital allocation strategy over the past few years and returned over $280 million of cash to shareholders over just the last six quarters through our share repurchase program. If you put it all together, we've invested in the business, we've delivered on our growth agenda, and we're positioned well for the future. When we introduced our medium-term outlook in March of last year, we emphasized a couple points within the overall financial framework. First was the assumption of a modestly growing dental market. The second was that we estimated our ability to outgrow the market given the strength of our portfolio and the targeted reinvestments that we made in 2024 and early 2025. We also reinforced a very important point, which was the shift in our financial strategy, putting more emphasis on growing profit dollars and growing earnings per share dollars.
Lastly, we elevated free cash flow conversion to a primary metric that was simply to reflect the increased focus that we wanted to put into translating profits into cash, which we see as only strengthening our balance sheet and our capital allocation playbook going forward. Since then, we've consistently performed, exceeded initial medium-term expectations, and more specifically, as you can see on the bottom of the slide, core growth was strong in 2025 at 6.5% growth. This year, our guidance surrounds the top end of our medium-term range at 3.5%-4.5% growth. EBITDA growth has also overperformed with strong double-digit growth in 2025 and estimated for 2026 while continuing to invest for the future. Earnings growth has been very strong double-digit growth each year, backed by the structural improvement in our tax rate and, as mentioned, the most recently repurchased authorization.
Free cash flow conversion has also helped us build an even stronger cash position for Envista. Again, if you add it all up, the business is performing better, the quality of execution through EBS is improving, and we have a stronger base from which to work from going forward. Given the progress that we've made, and as you heard earlier today from Paul, we're updating our medium-term outlook. We now expect core growth of 2%-5%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 5%-8%, adjusted EPS growth of 7%-11%, and free cash flow conversion of approximately 100%. Important that our financial outlook reflects both the work that we've already completed, but the opportunities that were outlined today and that I'll talk about further that are still ahead of us.
We see it also as grounded in the factors that we can directly influence, namely continued investment in innovation, disciplined commercial execution, continued rigor within our operations via EBS, investment in the people strategies that Paul and each of the businesses laid out, and active capital deployment. Overall, the Envista team and our EBS engine can create an attractive return for shareholders while building on a sustainable future. Let me now take just a couple of minutes to talk through each of the primary financial metrics, where I'll give you a view of the insight that got us to where we are and, of course, what can continue to move the business forward.
Throughout the morning, I think you've gotten a good, strong sense for our core growth momentum and importantly, how each of our businesses will continue to outgrow their markets, which translates to our outlook of 2%-5%. We're operating in a stable and resilient dental market that we continue to believe will return to its long-term growth rate over time. In the meantime, as mentioned, we're focused on the pieces that we can control and delivering results through our growth initiatives. As you heard today, our R&D commercial investments are collectively aimed at reaching our customers globally while providing solutions that simplify dental procedures and enhance workflows, delivering clinically backed outcomes and, most importantly, improving lives. The recent launch of new products from Envista is a strong testament to our innovation and growth strategy.
You saw compelling examples today from each of our business leaders, which will transform the markets across their categories. Our implant brands via SmileGrid, which you'll have a moment to see or to see in a moment, aims to digitize and simplify case collaboration. Ormco is focused on delivering one orthodontic platform for the best treatment solution in the market. Consumables is focused on clinical performance and enduring brands. DEXIS continues to create collaborative solutions to simplify digital dentistry. Pricing also continues to be an EBS priority for us and a durable contributor to growth, which I'll talk about in just a moment. Before we go into our price execution, let's just take a step back for a moment and take an outside look at inflation pricing within the marketplace.
The chart here reflects the 25-year trend of two publicly available sets of data, CPI and dental service inflation. There's three important takeaways from this chart. The first is that dental procedure prices over time outpace CPI. The second is that you can clearly see that COVID injected a period of uncertainty or disruption where this longer-term trend didn't hold up. But most importantly and notably, the longer-term trend has returned in recent quarters. We expect not only will the long-term trend continue forward, but that our pricing strategies will be similar, where pricing offsets or even outstrips our net rate of inflation, even though historically, those product price increases have been below our customers' procedure price increases. If we take a look at our business, Paul mentioned it earlier, our focus on pricing is a great example of how stronger operating discipline translates into financial performance.
Over the last three years, Envista's delivered approximately $100 million of price realization. That change in trajectory required a change in our approach, which started in 2024. Better analytics, tighter coordination between our finance teams and our commercial teams, and as noted earlier, improved accountability. Important to note that we don't view pricing as just a one-time macro inflation response. We view it as a core commercial capability in each of our businesses. We have brands with strong clinical credibility, innovation, and differentiated value propositions that improve outcomes and practice productivity, which gives us the ability to have price power within the marketplace. Additional focus and discipline in pricing can also be a durable contributor to our annual growth. That's exactly the kind of repeatable capability-based improvement that we want investors to see enabled by our EBS engine.
Turning to adjusted EBITDA growth, we expect 5%-8% annual growth over the medium term. Our core growth is an important starting point due to the strength of our strong growth margins, but importantly, we're not dependent on volume leverage. We want to continue to leverage productivity in the next few years as we have in the past few years. We expect EBS to continue to support operational initiatives like factory productivity, line automation, procurement, and G&A efficiency. You saw examples from each of our businesses as to what they've been doing in the past and still opportunities going forward in each of these areas. As Paul outlined earlier in his presentation, we've progressed over the past few years in each of these areas, but at differing speeds, right? Some with the full circle, some sort of partial, implying that we have more to go.
Manufacturing automation and Spark, as well as G&A efficiencies, were two great examples over the past few years that drove significant value. It enabled us to invest in growth, but importantly, we have many opportunities that remain to improve on this base, replicating good examples in one places and other areas of the company, while making sure that we continue to add new capability. Procurement is one of the most recent tangible examples of where we've delivered recently and where further opportunities exist. During the second half of 2025, we completed an assessment across our global direct and indirect procurement spend, which represents nearly $1 billion in addressable annual spend. In 2026 alone, we'll generate $10 million of savings with a pipeline of opportunities ahead.
We've also strengthened our procurement leadership and organizational model, including improved coordination globally across all of our indirect categories, and also targeted strategies for several of our direct categories. We'll continue to strengthen our capabilities over the next few years and leverage procurement teams to help fund the business growth, but also drive profit improvement. In March of last year, we elevated EPS as a primary financial metric. That change helped us to better align and prioritize our efforts internally, but also to drive a broader set of shareholder value creation levers. We now expect medium term adjusted EPS growth of 7%-11%. Beyond growing our profits, we focused the last two years on additional levers for value creation. The first, and where it started, was creating a more efficient access to our international cash. That improvement enabled us two other significant benefits.
The first was optimization of our interest income. The second was the addition of our share repurchase program, where we deployed over $280 million of cash to shareholders in the last several quarters. The last area, which I will talk about in a moment, is our tax rate. All of these efforts have been a great example of a single financial strategy coming together collectively, helping to deliver earnings leverage, but importantly, supporting our capital allocation plan.
Please also note that our EPS outlook does contain capital deployment aligned with our capital allocation priorities to offset likely headwinds from increased net interest expense from likely refresh of our debt stack, which I will cover in just a moment. On the tax front, we have delivered a significant improvement recently. Over the past two years, our tax rate was reduced by roughly 13 points, driven by improved U.S. earnings and strategic tax planning.
We have also worked through prior structural and legal entity constraints, including the legacy intercompany loans that we have talked about several times. Looking forward, there are opportunities that we have which can be unlocked through legal entity simplification and geographic mix. Our tax and treasury organizations are also working very closely together to deliver a more efficient flow of global cash, which is aimed at enhancing returns from our capital deployment plans. Our debt strategy also supports our longer term capital allocation plan. Our current capital structure includes a mix of convertible debt, term loans, and revolving credit. While it has been interest rate efficient, it is also relatively short term in nature. As we consider the debt structure, our objectives moving forward are straightforward: lengthen duration, diversify our instruments, stagger our maturities, and most importantly, preserve efficient access to capital for our capital allocation priorities.
At a similar level of gross debt, we are likely to see higher net interest expense, which will create some EPS headwinds to our organic plan. This includes or is included in our outlook ranges, but the strength of our balance sheet and improved debt structure will also benefit longer term capital allocation and the value that results from that. Free cash flow conversion is another primary metric that we elevated in our March 2025 Capital Markets Day, as it is foundational to our long term value creation plan. We continue to expect approximately 100% free cash flow conversion over the medium term. There are several reasons for both strong cash generation and conversion at Envista. The first is that our capital expenditure model is efficient and we are very disciplined about prioritizing high returning investments.
You have seen this play out in the last couple of years relative to our investment in Spark automation, manifesting in both growth and margin opportunity. Second, as we invest in manufacturing footprint optimization, those investments are largely aimed at improving growth, improving cost, and improving quality, which all help generate strong profits, and again, efficient conversion for Envista. Working capital also remains a core strength. Envista has historically operated with strong working capital turns, and EBS gives us the process to keep improving and working on our velocities. When you combine our cash position, annual free cash flow generation, and attractive leverage, Envista is positioned with capital deployment flexibility, which can create additional shareholder value. Our priorities for capital deployment remain very much the same. First, investing organically in the business. Second, leveraging M&A to expand geographically and to strengthen our portfolio. Lastly, to return cash to shareholders.
We hope that you agree that Envista is well positioned for continued success. With that wraps up the morning and the planned presentation of our day. We will now take about 10 minutes to set up on stage here, where we will prepare for about an hour of Q&A. For those of you that are in the room, there is refreshments outside. If you would be back within 10 minutes, that would be fantastic. Thank you.
All right. We are going to get going with Q&A here. We have our presenters and speakers up front, and we will take questions from in the room. Elizabeth, we will start there.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks so much for the commentary. I guess this guidance range change seems at least in line with our expectations and what makes sense for the business. If we think about your performance, you have obviously done much better than your previous long-term guide. If we think about the upside potential drivers to this guidance or potentially some areas of weakness on the downside, what would you call out as the biggest upside potential drivers there?
All right. Well, thanks for kicking us off, Elizabeth. My mic on? Coming through?
Yep.
I tell you what, why don't I cover the first two metrics? I'll do core growth and EBITDA growth, and then Eric, I'll ask you to do EPS and free cash flow. Core growth, again, the heightened outlook moving forward is 2%-5%, as you saw in the presentation. Our proven process capability has been around 3%-4%, so right in the center of the range. For us, around $30 million of incremental revenue is a point of growth. Across this morning's presentations, you've seen multiple examples of initiatives that are underway that could get you $30 million of incremental growth, either as an individual initiative or certainly, collectively. But I'd probably categorize them into three groups. The first, big emphasis on new products.
Many of us kind of grew up in a new product culture, and when we came to Envista, we instilled that. Increased investment and it's starting to pay off. Several of those programs that the presidents talked about are of that magnitude, $30 million-ish type new products or better. Second category I would talk about is specific, either product categories, geographic categories, or customer categories that are growing faster than the overall market and where we're still under-indexed. The best product example of those, you heard from Stefan and Robert. We'd like to be bigger in Challenger implants. Grows a little more quickly than premium. And we're a strong market leader in diagnostic hardware. The diagnostic software category is small right now, but very fast-growing, and we're very well-positioned to succeed in that. So those are two product categories where we could grow even more quickly.
Geographically, developing markets, of course, grow more quickly than developed markets. We have very strong positions in two of the bigger developing markets. We're strong in Russia, strong in China, as we've talked about. We'd like to be even stronger in markets like India or Brazil. And then on the customer front, the obvious one there is DSOs. We know in most big dental markets, DSOs grow more quickly than the overall category. We're strong, but we could be even stronger in DSOs. Let's see, that covers the core growth piece. Let's go on to EBITDA. For us, we moved that whole range up from 4%-7% to 5%-8%. Over the past two years, we had very strong EBITDA growth, much more than twice as fast as the top-line growth. That helped get that extra profitability. We also did very well on the G&A front.
We took about $35 million out of G&A. Moving forward, as you saw in the presentations, we have a particular focus on COGS. We've started to bend the curve on COGS. After several years of gross margin compression, we've now had two straight quarters of gross margin expansion, and we have very explicit programs underway, procurement, footprint, factory automation, to claw back some of that position on the COGS line. The third I would talk about, and probably counterintuitive for dental is I would say macro is another potential accelerant to the top end of that range. And what I mean by that is on the pricing front. Eric had showed very good data over time, dental inflation outran CPI by about a point. Over the last couple quarters, it's been even greater than that.
If that inflationary delta between dental and CPI persisted, that of course, would be helpful to us. That takes you through the growth and the EBITDA front. In terms of what could tip us to the low end of that range, I guess I'd go back to macro again. Four main indicators describe most of what happens in underlying dental. You guys know them well. GDP growth, unemployment, consumer confidence, and interest rates. In the back half of 2024, all four of those were headed in the right direction. Then beginning in 2025, one of them turned yellowish red. That was consumer confidence. Now a second one is flashing yellow, that being interest rates. Were those to get worse or if either of the remaining two were to start flashing yellow, that, of course, wouldn't be helpful for the dental market. Wouldn't be helpful for us either.
You want to talk about EPS and cash flow?
Yeah, that'd be great. Let me just start with EPS. Maybe the place to start would be just reinforcing what I mentioned in the pre-read remarks and what's effectively in our earnings outlook. I won't repeat the adjusted EBITDA growth. You see that clearly from the range, and you heard from Paul Keel on the sort of the variability, the 5%-8%. In our earnings per share growth, we're assuming a few things. We're assuming a continued reduction of our tax rate. Obviously, a lot has happened in the last few years. Some of that is more structural. We still have improvement opportunity to get back to or slightly below our, call it long-term or early years as we spun out of the company tax rate, which is like mid to lower 20%. That's sort of baked in. We have ideas around that.
I mentioned geographic mix, as well as just some structural things that we can continue to do in tax planning. We're assuming that we're deploying capital towards share repurchases dependent on other capital allocation priorities at roughly one-third of annual free cash flow. That's sort of the base assumption that we have within our model. I think really the biggest opportunity as we think about more of the top end of the range is capital deployment. You saw it feathered quite a bit throughout the day today. We've done a lot to position ourselves well, whether it's our cash balance, whether it's what we're looking at in terms of a potential future debt structure, but also where all of our global cash sits.
And you guys all know for a good earnings-generating company, for a good 100% free cash flow conversion company with a good starting point, we have a lot of opportunities, whether it's organic, inorganic, or maybe a share repurchase program extension that we can do more there. M&A is probably the number one lever I would say can be a differentiator to the plan. Our plan is largely an organic plan, as you would expect. I think we have a good position to be able to lever up on that. Free cash flow, just in terms of variability, I'd say it less interesting, right? For starters, we just want to always reinforce internally and externally that we have a very efficient capital model today. There's a few things we have as opportunities.
As I mentioned on the procurement side, we're also leaning in hard on the terms side of procurement. That's what good companies do. We run today around 55 days. We know we can make improvements there, and there's a lot of simple, innovative ways for suppliers to also access more efficient rate models that we have not deployed to date. So that's a good example of an opportunity in working capital. I would just say on the automation front, that may be more the low side, if you want to call it that, or the moderate side of free cash conversion. The more opportunities we see in automation to replicate opportunities like we've accessed in Spark, that's probably going to be a little bit more CapEx than what runs in our historic model. But we can still generate around 100% free cash flow conversion with that.
Then there's one last piece I'll just mention, which I think everybody here probably understands, and that's that the more we grow our Spark business, the more we have a sustained solid above 100% capability for free cash conversion. That's because we revenue recognize over a period of time, we bill up front, we collect up front. So it's a natural benefit, if you will, to our free cash conversion. That's just one other reason among many that we want to continue to grow well in our Spark platform and business.
Great. Steve, if you can identify yourself and your company affiliation.
Yeah. Hi, thanks. Good morning. It's Steven Valiquette from Mizuho Securities. Just a quick question really on the market sizes in the slide deck. If you compare today's slide deck to the March 25 slide deck from 18 months ago, the dental implant market size of $12 billion was unchanged. Orthodontic market size was unchanged at $7 billion. Consumables increased from $8 billion- $10 billion, diagnostics from $3.0 billion- $3.5 billion. The question is, can you just provide us with a quick headline summary to reinforce the drivers of the increase in the consumables and diagnostics market sizes? And is there anything to read into the lack of increase in the faster-growing implant ortho market sizes in the slides, or am I just overthinking it? Thanks.
Why don't I take why ortho and implants didn't increase, and I'll ask Filippo and Robert to talk about their specific segments. You get better data on ortho and implants, and you triangulate across all the available data. It says the same numbers. Consumables is more fragmented, and diagnostics is smaller, so not as much data availability, but you guys know the markets better.
Yeah, I can comment on consumables specifically. As I mentioned, our point of view, we have a strong position in North America. We know that market very well. We have opportunity internationally. Over recent period, we have done more research around consumable business globally, and we think that $10 billion is a good actually assessment of the total market opportunity around categories where we play in. So I think it's linked specifically to our renewed focus as well around the category.
Robert, diagnostics.
On diagnostics, the expansion on software and services is the biggest driver. There is a lot more software value being generated in dentistry today than there was even two years ago.
Okay. Thank you.
Great. Jeff, why don't you come up here? John afterwards.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for all the information today. Two questions if I could. Paul, I wanted to pull on two strings, maybe of things you said in your answer to Elizabeth's question. First, just on the EBITDA side, maybe this is a question, I guess, for Eric. Margins fell from 18%, I think a few years ago. You had been trending in that upper teens to 12%. You have improved EBITDA 40% here off those 12% troughs.
As I think about the arc of Envista, the arc of maybe one of your bigger competitors, there seems like there is always a cycling from upper teens EBITDAs down to low double-digit EBITDA margins. You are on a path on the way back up, which is good, but how do we think about instead of over the medium range, longer term, what is the right EBITDA margin for a well-run dental manufacturer?
Can it be upper teens again? Does that mean you cut back on too much? You are 14% now. How do we think about maybe the next five years?
I will give the frame, and then you can give the details. March of 2025, our first capital markets event, we moved away from guiding EBITDA margin to guiding EBITDA growth. We did that very intentionally for two reasons. One, we think it is EBITDA growth that creates shareholder value, not a percentage. The second is we had seen when we came into the business that decisions were made that in support of a percentage that we thought were not supportive of total value creation. That would be point number one. Point number two is, you guys run the math. If you grow the top line at 2%-5%, take the middle of that, you grow EBITDA 5%-8%, take the midpoint of that, you get about 50 basis points of margin expanse in a year.
Pick whatever you want to call medium-term, you can just run that math out.
Yeah, no, I think that is right. Maybe two points I would make, Jeff. One would be, there is never an endpoint, right? If your question is more about an endpoint, yeah, high teens is the way that we think about the healthy landing place over time for our business. I think the important point relative to the profit growth piece, I like to think about the bridges that we have shown the last two years. For me, that is how we look at running the business, right? We estimate what our growth can be. We look hard at our productivity. We consider how all of that can impact the bottom line, and then we are just consistently making decisions on how much we can invest in the business to continue to try to consistently improve the growth profile of the business, right?
Our bridges in the last two years have shown sort of that same propensity, right? Getting volume growth, having that be part of our margin expansion story, getting price. Sometimes it is offsetting inflation, sometimes it is pure margin expansion. Investing in the business, having underlying productivity, net productivity offsetting inflation, right? We are consistently looking at that formula, right? What investments do we have to be able to make? How do we continue to grow profit dollars? We are also very conscientious of the fact that the margin rate of any company is a signal of the health of the company. A signal of its growth potential, pricing power, innovation in the marketplace.
Fair enough. A follow-up question. Paul, I am not sure for you or Robert maybe. How big can software and services get as a percentage of diagnostics revenue over time? How much of that today is subscription-based versus maybe an on-prem single sale? How competitive are you guys to some of the standalones out there, the Overjet, the Pearl, things like that? Do we get to a point where you can connect all of that to then the insurers? The insurers can kick back and chair side, you can talk about, "Hey, patient, we know that these three things would be reimbursed today. Here is what your copay would be. Let us structure, organize, or prioritize this procedure over this one because of your copays or something." That to me is where AI could really drive an increase in utilization of dental over time.
How close are we to getting to all of that? Thanks.
Yeah. Maybe I will give the Envista view, and then you-
drill into just the diagnostic and the workflow piece of that. Of course, AI software is helpful to Envista across the spectrum. So it's very interesting to us just as a standalone product, what you're asking about. Robert will go more deeply into what we're doing in that regard. AI software is very interesting to us in how we improve the efficiencies of both our manufacturing as well as running the business. You've heard a couple examples of that. Probably most visible is the AI software we use to drive efficiency in the design stage of making clear aligners. The third piece of that puzzle, of course, is we use software to help drive appliance sales. An easier user interface from an IOS makes an easier job for Veronica to provide clear aligners for that example.
You saw Robert talk about the software he's developing for AI-driven treatment planning. That's very good for Stefan's business. You saw another example, AI treatment planning for endo, very good for the products that Filippo provides. AI software is interesting for us across the enterprise. But yes, there is a specific piece of that in Robert's world that is also quite interesting.
Yeah. So with respect to what mix is going to look like, I think in the preferred materials, we talked about 23% of revenue coming from software and services. I think disclosures beyond that, I'll defer you back to Jim for those conversations. But strategically, there are a couple of things to consider. A number of companies who play in AI in dentistry are looking at both administrative tasks as well as clinical tasks. We are very focused on diagnostics, which is predominantly clinical. So we're not looking to build RCM, which is where you're going with the thing, right? But if you consider our footprint and our install base, and you consider our share of hardware that happens to be used in practices, the two places where all treatments start, either it starts in the PMS or it starts on a device.
We lead the device category. So we anticipate that as we scale our tools off the desktop on-prem version to cloud versions, we will convert the majority of those customers to what that's going to look like going forward, on the back of our hardware install base and our existing software on-prem base. That's going to play out over the next, call it 36 months or so, right? The replacement cycle is not as rapid with dentists, but we're excited about it. But staying very clinical.
Great. John and then Mike.
Great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for everything, and good morning. Jonathan Block with Stifel. Paul, for you, the first one, what are the assumptions behind the LRP regarding the market growth? I think you used to sort of say stable with green shoots. I did hear Eric in one of his slides say resilient. Maybe if you can get a little bit more granular on what that LRP assumes, and then, in the near term, have you seen any change of late? Then I will just ask the follow-up. Thanks.
Yeah. To me, two good questions. First, our guidance doesn't assume any market help to deliver those ranges. We think those are within our control, consistent with Elizabeth's question. The macro could be both friend or headwind here, depending upon what plays out. The second part of your question was around
Just in the near term, if you have seen any change
in the rate of growth of the market.
The first couple earnings calls when Eric and I joined, we said that the market was slow. Then we moved into the phrase we use, slow but stable. The last two earnings calls, we said stable with green shoots. Yes, we believe it is getting better. I would point to a couple things in evidence of that. The first most visible is the diagnostic category, as Robert showed. That category was in compression for two-plus years. It is now growing. That clearly is an improvement for overall dental. Second thing I would point you to is the data that I showed. You can get great data for total dental expenditure. You can get it very easily in the U.S. Other big markets, you can get it. You can compare it to the overall economy. Once again, dental is outgrowing the overall economy.
I would say that is another clear green shoot. The third relates to dental, again, being able to capture price in a predictable way. I really liked Eric's data. Because of that air pocket after COVID, people thought that dental was not a category, or was thought of as a category that was price elastic. It is just not statistically the case. You can pull a 25-year data set, you see it is typically not a very price elastic category.
The way it plays out is procedure prices go up at about that 3%, and looking back, most manufacturers have priced below that 3%, which structurally is a very healthy way for an industry to behave. If the customers are raising 3%, happens to go in line with what insurance reimbursement growth is, that is about 3%, and then the suppliers 1%- 1.5% price increases, structurally very stable market in that regard.
Okay. Just second question to follow-up, maybe for you or Stefan.
For implants, the S series, I believe you gave a metric, 18% of the revenue was S series, maybe a quarter was from competitive wins. Where do you expect that to go? Does that go to 40%, 70%? Eric, is that margin accretive? The tack on within implants is, challengers growing faster. I would suspect you do not expect that to change over the coming years. Maybe if we could just get an update on the M&A landscape there, where prices are or asks are at, in terms of your interest in bringing in an additional challenger franchise. Thank you.
All right. We got three questions. We got how big could S series get for you, we got margins for you, and we got M&A for me. Somebody try to remember that. You go with the first part.
Yeah, sure. From a customer-focused. I used to run a DSO before in Europe, and simplicity, inventory, when you have a lot of clinics. Also predictability outcome to build confidence. This is something we have been working on for a while. We also wanted to make sure that we keep all the great things we have in our systems. So it is very easy for our clinicians to move to our S series. I believe it will be our predominantly sold implants going forward. You can see adoption of this percentage is various in different markets, but that is also linked maybe also to the launch. We are launching this broadly. So I see very positive. It brings so many advantages for our customers to move over to S series. Look, it is a fantastic start, and I continue to see that.
Yeah. Short answer, John, on your question on margin is, yes. It is accretive for Stefan's business. It is accretive for Envista. It is accretive to the balance of our portfolio. The modestly longer version of that, which I think is important, is that Stefan laid out, I think, a very compelling story for the growth of our implants business collectively getting much, much better over the last few years. We have talked to this group many of times that a lot that is behind that strategy relates to how his digital sales force, end to end, is getting out and selling that full solution portfolio. That is everything from prosthetics to regenerative biomaterials to guided surgery, which you see out there in X-Guide, to the implant itself. But what is also true is that the growth momentum of our business has come more outside of the implant itself.
This is a very, very significant element of both our growth story and our margin story.
On M&A, Envista has very deep M&A capabilities. I was pleased to see this morning Daniel Raskas, who is on our board, join us today. He ran corporate development for Danaher from the very beginning. He is the architect of what is now Envista, and it is a very logical, coherent portfolio. Our philosophy with respect to M&A is that provided you understand the landscape, and I think we do, it is principally an execution exercise. For us, we did not do a lot of M&A at the beginning because we needed to get that execution rhythm back. As we have now improved execution across the company, you have seen us start to dip our toe back into M&A. We did these three small bolt-on accretive acquisitions.
When we say accretive, we mean grows faster than Envista in total, has margins above Envista in total, and you can buy them for a multiple below Envista in total. All three of those were those type deals. Now we would like to deploy more capital if the execution is going. I do not know that we can hit those same three bullseyes on every deal. As you get bigger, it is harder to do. But we were clear on where our priorities are, and we are looking at potential ways to deploy M&A capital across this priority.
Great. Mike?
Great. Michael Cherny from Leerink Partners. Two follow-ups, one to John and one back to Elizabeth's first question. Just on the challenger side, you answered the M&A question. In terms of what's underpinning your growth algo for implants on the challenger component, how are you winning most in challenger, and do you have the pieces in place to continue to do that? On the enterprise-wide LRP, I think earlier you addressed the upside. I wanted to talk about the bottom end. In particular, what does the world need to look like, and what does your execution need to look like for 2% organic growth to be the right number, given that you've obviously comfortably outdone that over the last 18 months since the last Capital Markets Day?
Okay. I'll take the LRP question, then you talk about what we're doing to organically grow our challenger business. What does the world need to look like for us to be 2%? It would need to be a world where the dental market was growing a little bit under 2%. There's a lot of different macro conditions. We've lived them over the last five years, where the dental market was a low single-digit grower. Our aspiration, of course, is to continue capturing share, even if markets soften. How about on challenger?
Sure. We have two great companies, Implant Direct and Alpha-Bio Tec. Having that said, we are not geographically everywhere. We can bring those systems to more geographies, and that's something we are working on. We are also now part in the same family, so to speak, so we can support digitally and prosthetic and regenerative, these challenger brands, on a bigger effect.
That gives us growth opportunities as well. Our premier focus is now organically grow Implant Direct and Alpha-Bio Tec. But of course, I'm squeezed here between the gentlemen, but of course, I'm looking at the market, where can we maybe even grow faster if we can grow inorganically. Yes, that's for sure something I'm looking at. Mm-hmm.
Jason, then Brandon.
Yeah. Thanks. Jason Bednar, Piper Sandler. Thanks for hosting the day today. I wanted to start actually on product sourcing. I appreciate the color on the $10 million in savings that you've already realized. Sounds like there's more to be had there. How do you balance that against this narrative that's out there that's building, that product sourcing is actually the costs are rising for a lot of manufacturers, especially those with operations or sensitivity to Europe?
Yeah. Couple things. I'll give an answer that maybe first starts outside of the core of the question, which is the direct space. So $1 billion in addressable spend, that's what you heard today. For us, it's roughly 50/50. Half of that's indirect, half of that's direct. As we've gone after the pipeline or defined the pipeline and then gone after the first part of that pipeline, the majority of that 10 is indirect. Some say that's easy to get after, others say it's hard to get after. It doesn't really matter. We got after it. I would say there's more there. So admittedly, we prioritized that earlier to kind of build capability. It's something you can get your hands around. It was obvious from my seat that it was also an easier access opportunity. We'll continue to do that.
The direct space, a couple things I would say. For me, the direct side of procurement always starts with two things. One, it starts with just really understanding where you spend your money. I know that sounds very basic, but it moves towards how do you connect internally for a healthcare company, a med tech company, what you manufacture, who you source from, and how you develop products, right? So a little longer trend for us, but we have a process where we're deeply engaging suppliers, our own internal R&D teams, to be able to move our dual sourcing strategy over time. When you do that, you obviously get better leverage. But internally to our company, we also have something that's called VAVE, value-added engineering, effectively. Right? That's engineering teams that are innovating for growth, but innovating for cost out.
The last piece of it maybe is just an admittance, which is absolutely we are in an environment six months removed from the start of the Middle East conflict, where every manufacturer understands that oil, polypropylene, ethylene, polypropanol, we all know where it ends up, right? Personally, I just think companies that understood or understand that faster and get ahead of it faster, at a very minimum, can try to combat the rate of inflation. Hopefully, in some cases, with good VAVE or connections to your R&D or just good procurement organizations, you can reduce cost.
Okay. All right. Thanks. Eric, actually, one more for you. You mentioned the direction of tax rate, kind of gave us a landing point on tax rate. I think one other piece here below the line is on the interest expense side, you brought up the needing to address the debt stack. Can you give a little more color there on timing on when you plan to execute on some of this? Where does the blended rate land? Or just anything to help us out as we model out kind of in our minds and in our models-
Yeah
the next three years.
Yeah. Most of it's in our disclosures, but the big headline would be almost all of our existing debt, $1.4 billion, matures in basically the same period in 2028, mid of 2028. Right? That's partially because when you spin a company, you stand up an element of debt, kind of happens at the same time. But it also happens to come on the back of the COVID period and Envista needing to acquire. So 2028 is the day we're looking at. What that tells you is that there's not a lot of time between now and then, and of course, we don't want to run up that refresh right to the end, right? Otherwise, you're sort of victim to where the markets are at. Because of the attractiveness of our 2028 convert, our blended rate is a little over 3%. You guys know where US Treasuries are at today.
That kind of gives you directionally where things would go. The last piece I would just mention is we still see it as strategic. So yes, it could be an interest expense headwind to us, but the flip side of that is we are trying to continue to position Envista to be able to invest in its capital allocation organically to be able to grow the business, but inorganically to be able to grow the business. If for whatever reason we have less capital allocation needs in our first priorities, first three priorities, we will look at debt paydown. But I think all of you would expect us to go find better ROIC opportunities.
Brandon and then Kevin.
Hi, everyone. Brandon Vazquez from William Blair. Thanks for the questions. Two Spark questions. One maybe for you, Veronica, and then one for Eric. Veronica, I think one of the really interesting updates you guys gave was around StageRx and the combination of wires and brackets planning and clear aligners into one. Can you walk us through a little bit today what does the workflow look like today of the orthodontist that is using both, so we can maybe better understand how much this can potentially streamline the workflow for the orthodontist, because then obviously the benefit here is the pull-through of what are your market leading brands in wires and brackets as well. Eric, I will ask for you. As you think about the medium-term financial targets, we have talked a little bit about, I think we are switching now to talk gross margins on Spark.
What are you assuming Spark can get to in terms of gross margins as we think about those medium-term targets?
For clarification, you asked about StageRx and then in-clinic workflow for brackets and wires?
Yeah. My understanding, but correct me if I'm wrong, was that the new software that you guys are talking about combines-
Veronica can clear that up.
Yeah. As I mentioned during my presentation, one of the most exciting opportunities that we have today is that we're building under one platform, the ability to treat both aligners as well as bracket and wires. If you walk through the workflow, it goes back to what Paul Keel was mentioning. You scan, you define a treatment plan, and then you treat the patient. Correct? Today, the ability of scanning starts the same way for both bracket and wires as well as aligners. Then you go into a treatment plan, which obviously the treatment plan of aligners is a little bit different than what you do for bracket and wires. But we still have the ability for bracket and wires with our indirect bonding of placement of brackets in the right way, making it more efficient for doctors when they have to apply a bracket and wire.
It is taking them through the same platform, which as I mentioned earlier, we now have the ability to have that being run in the same platform. We are working towards even identifying the possibility of hybrid treatments in the future, which we believe have a lot of opportunity because of treatment predictability, time of treatment, but there are still great opportunities for further transformation of this industry. I hope that that makes sense.
Yeah. A couple points on the second part. Maybe just one, I just want to piggyback on your lead. Yes, we are making this transition from profit, operating profit to gross profit. The reason for that is if you follow a lot of the things that Veronica has said over the last few years, that we have talked about with you in the marketplace and even today's presentation, this is a business that, yes, we can find our way to the profit of Spark, but brackets and wires, aligners, whether it is R&D, sales force, even to some degree, manufacturing, is coming together. We do not want to be beholden to a profit view that really is not as clean as we would love it to be. We graduate to gross profit. That is ultimately what Veronica and her team are driving on that level.
We are today, call it slightly below the Envista average for gross profit in Spark. You guys all know roughly where the public company competitors sit. Low 70s, upper 60s. We do not think in a medium-term outlook, couple of years, three, four years, we do not think we can get there, and there are differences between the business. We treat in the orthodontist space. Others treat more in the general practitioner space. That allows some economics as well. But we will certainly progress a good portion of the way over the LRP.
Kevin, and then Lily after.
Kevin Caliendo with UBS. I want to talk a little bit about the health of the customer. We have heard and read and learned about some of the DSOs are struggling financially, maybe more so than normal. Is it affecting you guys in any way, either positively or negatively? Is it an opportunity? Is it changing any of the terms? Is it also impacting demand in any way, shape, or form, or changing? I am just wondering how that is impacting the business as we are hearing these anecdotal stories.
Yeah. Let me answer it geographically. The three markets where DSOs are most penetrated are China, Europe, and North America. I would say across the three, the healthiest group right now is in Europe. The market, in total, grows a little bit more quickly than North America right now and faster than China. I would say there, yes, there are some DSOs, private equity-backed, that might have balance sheet issues, but writ large, I would say that is the healthiest of the three. I guess I would go to China next. China is 60/40, the dental market between private and public. Of course, public goes through VBP. That pressures the margins of a public hospital. If the procedure cost is reduced at the same time that the supply costs are, like what we saw with implants, that inevitably trickles down to the private markets.
You feel some of that same pressure to the DSOs in China, VBP-related. Then you come to North America, and I would say there are two things pressuring the DSOs. The first is coming out of COVID. If you remember that chart I showed with dental expenditure, all-time record year for dental in 2021. There was a view amongst private equity investors, also amongst the dental manufacturers, that something had structurally changed in dental, and that it was no longer a 3%-5% growing category. It was something more. That attracted a lot of capital into dental, in particular dental services, and a lot of these DSOs got funded that year at high multiples and then high leverage, and then underpinning all that, high value creation models that said they were correctly capitalized.
You then had the second issue, which was that air pocket, 2022 and 2023, when they did not perform at those levels, and it ratcheted up that pressure. Right now, yes, you are correct. Some of the North American DSOs are working through that sort of balance sheet issue. The underlying performance of the DSOs, generally pretty good. When I joined, I wanted to get even closer to customers, so we moved the North American DSO organization to report directly to me. I spend a lot of time with the U.S. and Canadian DSOs. Happens to be a big DSO customer on-site today you guys might bump into. But I think they would tell you the underlying part of their business is just fine. It is that capitalization in some cases that they are trying to work through.
Great. Thank you. Lily Lozada at JPMorgan. I just want to follow up on some of the earlier questions on the overall revenue guidance range. The range you gave today is a bit wider than what you gave previously, and you reiterated the low end. Hoping you can unpack the thinking behind that a bit more. The business is clearly in a better place than it was a year and a half ago. Why not raise the low end of the guide?
Yeah. Yes, point number one, you're correct. The business is growing faster and more consistently than it was two years ago. Big numbers, if you normalized from where we were in 2024, we'd have told you it was about a 1% grower. Today, we'd tell you it's sort of a 3%-4% grower. The delta between the two comes down to three things. New product engine is growing more quickly. We're capturing more share, and then we're getting a little bit of help, as you saw from that extra price. We think the range ought to move up. We moved it up about a point. When we thought about what we wanted to publish for the lower end, we had the same conversation that we just had here about the uncertainty.
We don't give you a range and then assign a confidence interval to it. All we can do is expand that, or in this case, leave the same, the lower end of that range. Think of it as the yes, faster-growing business, but uncertainty is as high, if not higher than it was two years ago.
Great. Just a quick follow-up on the EBITDA guidance. Hoping you can unpack the different levers down the P&L, where you see the most opportunity across gross margin, OpEx, and R&D in particular has been increasing as a percentage of sales the last few years. Is that something we should expect to continue? Thanks.
I can take that. Yeah. So again, Lily, I would say think back. My sort of mental map is what we have done over the last two years, at least at a high level, right? The levers are largely the same. We are going to continue to get adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion primarily from our first capital priority, which is investing organically in the business and growing the business, which you know just from our published financials, has very strong gross profits. To a lesser degree, probably because of the inflationary environment, tariff environment, we expect price to continue to be a contributor to that margin. We would like to be able to advance even further in productivity. I think when Paul talked about a few of the sort of ratings on our priorities and process capabilities, things like manufacturing productivity, we have moved the needle on.
We think we have more to do there, and so I would say while we have gotten productivity in the last few years, a lot of it has come thanks to Veronica's business, and we want to see more of that across the rest of the footprint. We will not invest at the same level as you have seen the last two years. Very significant investment, high single-digit plus investment in commercial, low double-digit plus investment in R&D. We will continue to invest, I would say, at or slightly above the rate of sales in R&D. I would say more at the rate of sales for sales and marketing.
Then kind of back to Jeff's question, we will judge the business every quarter, every year, every half year, and if we feel we have the ability to continue to invest in the business to be able to get sort of an acceleration of the growth rate and long-term an acceleration of the profit rate, we will continue to do that. I think important, you heard today, and you will hear now in just a few minutes, some of the things that we have invested in the last few years, you saw in terms of new product pipeline. As we went through quarters, made this assessment, SmileGrid was an example of something that we made a conscious choice end of last year to put money into as we were seeing the flywheel of the business perform well, and we will just continue to do more of that.
The last question from Allen here.
Thanks. I want to follow up on that, Eric. Allen Lutz, Bank of America. On new products and pricing, I think it was mentioned that new products at Ormco drove $75 million of revenue over the past three years, and then pricing drove another $100 million over the last three years. As we think about the last three years, obviously a different environment for both of those two items. You've worked really hard to introduce new products, and the pricing environment's been a little bit firmer maybe over the past 18 months or so. How do you think about the revenue contributions from new projects over the next three years relative to the last three years, and the same on pricing?
Yeah, why don't I take that one? So, like many other med tech companies, we think of new product vitality index. What proportion of the current revenues come from products previously introduced in some time increment. We think of it as three years. Across our portfolio, we have different MPVI rates. Right now, the strongest MPVI is in our diagnostics business. I mentioned that the ORTHOPANTOMOGRAPH OP 3D platform, which is down in the lobby in particular, was one of our biggest new product launches over the last five years. Across the portfolio, the businesses are at a different phase in that strengthening of the new product engine. Veronica's, even when we joined, was already going pretty well. She and her team have amplified that. Stefan talked about the big investment we made in 2024 to restart the engine in implants.
When Filippo took over the consumables platform, the very first thing he did is said, "I want one of the CEO Kaizen focused on the R&D pipeline for consumables." That led to the two launches that you saw in the first quarter here. Across the portfolio, we're working to accelerate the proportion of our growth that comes from new products, because it's such a sustainable way to keep propelling the business forward. With that, we probably have to wrap up. I would thank everybody who participated today, whether online, by dialing in, or here in the room. Hopefully, across the presentations and the Q&A, you got a better understanding and confidence, both in Envista specifically, but the dental market more generally. With that, I think we're going to shut down the webcast.
I'm going to release my co-presenters here for good behavior, and I'm going to ask Jim to come back up and tell you guys the run of show for the afternoon. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.