Geoff Martha
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Medtronic
Hi everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our momentum and solid execution continued this quarter as we establish a track record of consistently delivering mid single-digit organic revenue growth. Diabetes took another step forward with double-digit growth, supported by a return to growth in the US. I'd also note the particular strength we saw in multiple businesses like core spine, cardiac surgery, structural heart and cardiac pacing. And we had strong growth across international markets as we expand access to our innovative healthcare technologies all around the globe.
At the same time, we've had a rapid cadence of new product approvals and we're continuing to differentially invest in our pipeline of highest growth opportunities. We're advancing innovative core technologies like robotics, AI and closed loop systems. And with five AI products already FDA approved, we're leading the way in bringing the tech into MedTech.
We also continue to make progress on our comprehensive transformation of the company. We're incorporating a performance-driven culture that's based on execution, speed and playing to win. And we're leveraging our scale to drive efficiencies. So when you look at our financials this quarter, you're seeing the early results of our focus on restoring earnings power and converting our earnings into strong cash flow. And we're using that cash to both invest in high return opportunities and return value to our shareholders. So we're executing and we're delivering, and we expect to continue over the coming quarters and years given our momentum, our ongoing transformation, our breakthrough innovation, our exposure to strong secular growth markets, and our numerous catalysts across the business.
Now, before I get into the details of our Q3 results, I do want to mention that we provided a portfolio management update this morning on our Patient Monitoring and Respiratory Interventions businesses. After a comprehensive review, we have decided to exit our unprofitable ventilator product line and retain and bring together our remaining PMRI businesses into one business, which we're calling acute care and monitoring. Now, we've determined it is in the best interest of Medtronic, its stakeholders, the ACM business, both near and long term, to exit vents because of its increasing unprofitability and market preference shift to lower acuity ventilators. Now, as we exit vents, I want to recognize the strong legacy of our business and the Puritan Bennett brand, and we're committed to serving the needs of our customers and honoring our ventilator service contracts.
And I also want to thank the employees in our ventilator business who played an incredible role during the pandemic to dramatically expand production to get ventilators to the communities around the world that needed them. And while we exit, we do believe that existing manufacturers can meet the customer demand for new ventilators going forward.
Now, at the same time, we decided to retain and refocus the remaining PMRI businesses. Three main factors have driven this decision. First, we have strong conviction in our ability to lead and drive growth in acute care and monitoring, given our improved competitive position and our ability to properly fund this business with savings from exiting vents.
Second, the importance of data in this space is changing rapidly. It's becoming the basis of innovation, and this fact further improves our competitive differentiation. And lastly, as a company more broadly, we continue to prioritize profitable, innovation-driven growth and category leadership, and ACM can deliver both. That does not mean we will shy away from additional portfolio moves going forward, but the bar is high for any strategic activity that dilutes our focus on our profit and growth. So when you take these decisions together, we're able to provide increased investment for acute care and monitoring, using the savings from vents and bringing two businesses together, all without creating dilution to our P&L.
Now let's get into the details behind our Q3 results. We continue to look at our portfolio in three categories, established market leaders, synergistic and highest growth businesses. In this quarter, all three grew in-line with our expected growth algorithm. Our established market leader and synergistic businesses grew mid single digits, while our highest growth businesses posted high single-digit growth, and we expect their contribution to our overall growth to further accelerate in the quarters ahead.
Now, looking first at the established market leaders, combined they made up just under half of our revenue and grew 4%. Starting with Cranial & Spinal Technologies, we're driving consistent constant above market growth on the continued adoption of our able ecosystem. CST delivered high single digit growth in core spine, mid teens, growth in biologics, and high single digit growth in enabling technology. We had strong double-digit unit growth in stealth station navigation, O-arm and Mazor Robotic systems, a leading indicator for future growth in this business. We also continue to see strong adoption of unit adaptive spine intelligence, our integrated AI-based surgical planning solution.
Now with AiBLE, we're offering a complete robust ecosystem of enabling technologies and associated implants for spine surgeons. Our global footprint, which includes over 10,000 systems, is over four times greater than the nearest competitor. And with this scale and extensive and rapidly increasing install base, we're transforming the spine industry. We are leading the way as more surgeons adopt our integrated spine technologies and in an environment where there is disruption from consolidation, we're attracting the best sales teams to Medtronic to grow and expand our business.
Next in surgical, we grew 3%. Our Wound Management business won share, growing in the high teens on the strength of our V-Loc barb sutures. We also had solid mid single-digit growth in hernia products as we won share in synthetic permanent mesh with our ProGrip platform. And as expected, our surgical growth continued to have a modest impact from declines in bariatric surgery. Now, we still believe this impact will be temporary as more patients become eligible for surgery and as patients seek a more permanent treatment to weight loss.
To wrap up our established market leaders, cardiac rhythm also grew 3%, driven by high single-digit growth in cardiac pacing. Our Micra leadless pacemakers continue to post strong results, growing 15%, driven by the launch of our next generation Mirca AV2 and VR2 devices. We're also benefiting from the adoption of conduction system pacing, an alternative to traditional single or dual chamber pacing. Our 3830 lead, the only one on the market approved for conduction system pacing, continued to grow strong double digits.
In CRM. We also began training and the limited launch of our Aurora EV-ICD. Now we expect the EV-ICD to reaccelerate our defibrillation solutions growth in the coming quarters. As I've shared with you in the past, Aurora is a game changer in the ICD space. It delivers the benefits of a traditional ICD, including similar size, longevity and pacing features, but without the leads in the harder veins. And these benefits can be realized with one device and only one implant procedure. We expect our advantages will not only displace the competitor's device, we will expand the population far beyond the existing segment and be a strong growth driver for CRM.
Now turning to our synergistic businesses. Combined, they grew mid-single digits in Q3, and I'll highlight some of the drivers here. Let's start with aortic, which grew 13% on supply recovery and continued momentum of our Endurant AAA franchise. Cardiac surgery grew 10%, driven by strength in perfusion and cannula and ECLS to oxygenators, given competitor quality issues and the strong sales in international markets of our Avalus surgical valve. Coronary grew 7%, driven by double-digit growth in both guide catheters and balloons. And we increased our drug-eluting stent share in the US and in Europe on the continued rollout of our Onyx Frontier drug-eluting stent.
Now turning to businesses in our highest growth markets. As I mentioned earlier, together these businesses grew in the high single digits this quarter and we expect their contribution to our growth to accelerate going forward. Now, diabetes led the way, growing double digits on the global adoption of our game changing MiniMed 780G System. We're seeing strong sequential momentum, growing 5% over the prior quarter. Our customer base is growing sequentially and we're driving more revenue per customer. In the US, we not only return to growth, we grew mid single digits, driven by nearly 50% revenue growth in insulin pumps. We doubled our new users year-over-year, attracting those on multiple daily injection as well as users of competitor systems.
Users are choosing 780G for the outcomes it delivers. With intensive insulin users, these outcomes matter and the 780G is highly differentiated. It's the only AID system to automatically adjust and correct sugars every 5 minutes. It offers flexible glucose targets as low as 100 and features are proprietary meal detection technology. This leads to high-time and range for users. And this type of glycemic control is coming with less effort and burden, as users realize the relief that comes from spending more time in automation with our SmartGuard technology.
It's worth pointing out that in a recent third-party survey of nearly 2000 US diabetes pump users, the 780G scored number one in overall pump satisfaction. And among type one CGM users, our Guardian 4 Sensor mirrored competitor sensors in overall satisfaction. And during the quarter, we secured CE mark for our Simplera Sync sensor for use with the 780G, and we look to begin the limited release this spring. And in the US, we're planning to submit the 780G with Simplera Sync to the FDA in the first half of this calendar year. Simplera Sync is half the size of our current sensor. It has a disposable design and is much easier to put on.
Now, we've been driving the diabetes turnaround for some time and I got to tell you, it certainly feels really good to return to double-digit growth, but we're not finished here. There is definitely more work to be done as we work to bring to market an even more robust ecosystem of differentiated technology for people living with diabetes, including next generation durable pumps, smart pens, patch pumps, sensors and algorithms. And as the intensive insulin management space moves to using smart dosing through either AID or Smart MDI, we expect an acceleration in the growth contribution from our diabetes business.
Now, turning to cardiac ablation solutions, we delivered 11% growth in international markets, including 9% growth in Western Europe. Our strong international growth as well as our overall performance continues to be driven by our leading Arctic Front Cryo Solution, as pulsed field ablation
Is still in the early stages. We're seeing though a lot of enthusiasm in the market for our PFA products.
In Europe, we're the only company with PFA offerings for both the single-shot and the focal segments. And in single-shot, we have now started the limited market release of our PulseSelect PFA system here in fiscal Q4, and we're seeing very efficient procedures and after just a couple of cases, and so the learning curve is really short. The catheter handling and maneuverability has been excellent due to its small shaft and our custom 10-French bidirectional sheath. Clinicians are also reporting no noticeable muscle contraction with our PFA product, which is beneficial for patient experience.
In focal, we continue to ramp manufacturing of the Affera Mapping system and Sphere-9 Catheter and remain in limited market release in Europe. Sphere-9 is the only catheter that can perform both pulse field ablation and radiofrequency ablation and high density mapping. It's really an all-in-one catheter.
In the US, our CAS business declined in the quarter. We faced the first full quarter of competition in the cryoablation space, which is a space we created and had been the only player. In addition, many customers actually held back purchases as they awaited the launch of our PulseSelect
PFA catheter, which is now commercially available. We do expect to improve from here as we roll out the recently approved next generation Nitron CryoConsole and PulseSelect, the only PFA catheter FDA approved for both paroxysmal and persistent AF.
In addition to the European feedback, clinicians have consistently commented on how well it's visualized and how easily it connects to their mapping system. So we're also making progress in bringing our Affera Mapping System and Sphere9 catheter to the US, with the last patient follow up in our sphere per AF pivotal trial now completed, we expect to see the results at a medical meeting in the first half of this calendar year.
With an $8 billion market size, expanding our share in this underpenetrated cardiac ablation space is a big opportunity for us. We expect our growth profile to improve over time, first moving towards market growth and then winning share, as we bring our rich pipeline of innovation to patients who need this technology.
In neurovascular this quarter, we grew high single digits, when you exclude sales in China where the market is subject to volume based procurement. We continue to have strong double digit growth and Flow Diversion globally. This is being driven by our innovative Shield Technology for treating brain aneurysms, which is available on both Pipeline flex and Vantage flow diverters.
In robotic surgical technologies, we continued growing the install base for our differentiated Hugo robotic system in international markets. In the US, our Expand URO pivotal trial continues to enroll and we expect to have first enrollment in our hernia trial very soon. We expect Hugo equipped with advanced digital capabilities to be a meaningful growth driver for us in the years ahead. We believe surgeon preference for our open console and modular design, our leading position in minimally invasive surgery and instrumentation, our connected digital ecosystem and data-enabled insights, along with our world-class surgical training program and partnerships will meaningfully advance the low penetration of robotic surgery around the world.
Now turning to structural heart. We grew high single digits in the quarter, including mid single digits sequentially, as we see ongoing adoption of Evolut FX and its improved design and market leading valve performance. In Europe, where FX was launched for the first full quarter, we grew double digits, and Japan grew in the low 20s on the continued adoption of FX.
I'm pleased to share the news today that we have submitted Evolute FX plus to the FDA for approval. FX plus has three windows in the frame to allow easy coronary access while providing the same dependable valve performance of our Evolute platform. And we were also pleased to hear that one year trial results of our Smart trial will be presented as a late breaker at ACC on April 7th. We're excited to see the results and are looking forward to having both FX plus and the Smart trial, as well as the continued strength of our four year low risk data as catalysts for our structural heart business.
Now with that, let's go to Karen for a deeper look at our Q3 financial performance and our fiscal '24 guidance raise. Karen?
