St. Jude Medical Inc.
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St. Jude Medical LLC.
- General Company Overview
St. Jude Medical was incorporated in Minnesota in 1976. The Company's ticker symbol is STJ. References to “St. Jude Medical, Inc.,” “St. Jude,” “the Company,” “they,” “us” and “their” are to St. Jude Medical, Inc. and its subsidiaries. St. Jude Medical, Inc., together with its subsidiaries is focused on the development, manufacture, and distribution of cardiovascular medical devices for the global cardiac rhythm management, cardiovascular and atrial fibrillation therapy areas, and interventional pain therapy and neurostimulation devices for the management of chronic pain and movement disorders. They operate as a single operating segment and derive their revenues from seven principal product categories. These categories include: tachycardia implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) systems; atrial fibrillation (AF) products (electrophysiology (EP) introducers and catheters, advanced cardiac mapping, navigation and recording systems and ablation systems); bradycardia pacemaker (pacemaker) systems; vascular products (vascular closure products, pressure measurement guidewires, optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging products, vascular plugs, heart failure monitoring devices and other vascular accessories); structural heart products (heart valve replacement and repair products and structural heart defect devices); neuromodulation products (spinal cord stimulation and radiofrequency ablation to treat chronic pain and deep brain stimulation to treat movement disorders); and Thoratec products (ventricular assist devices and percutaneous heart pumps). They market and sell their products world-wide primarily through a direct sales force.
On January 13, 2016, they announced the future of their sales reporting starting in 2016 to closely align with how they will manage the business in five key areas: Heart Failure (HF), Atrial Fibrillation, Neuromodulation, Cardiovascular Disease, and Traditional Cardiac Rhythm Management. Previously, their sales results are managed based on their existing product categories through 2015, with the intention that sales reporting be managed under the new classification once it is fully effective in the first quarter of 2016.
They are focused on improving their operating margins through a variety of techniques, including the production of high quality products, the development of leading edge technology, the enhancement of their existing products and continuous improvement of their manufacturing processes. They expect competitive pressures in the industry, global economic conditions, cost containment pressure on healthcare systems and the implementation of U.S. healthcare reform legislation to continue to place downward pressure on prices for their products, impact reimbursement from products and potentially reduce medical procedure volumes.
In 2010, significant U.S. healthcare reform legislation, the Patient Protection, and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (collectively PPACA), was enacted into law. As a U.S.-headquartered company with significant sales in the United States, this healthcare reform law has had, and is expected to continue to have, a material impact on the company. Beginning in 2013, the law levied an annual 2.3% excise tax on most of their U.S. medical device sales, reduced the annual rate of inflation for Medicare payments to hospitals and called for the establishment of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to recommend strategies for reducing growth in Medicare spending. The law also focused on several Medicare provisions aimed at improving quality and decreasing costs, such as value-based payment programs, increased funding of comparative effectiveness research, reduced hospital payments for avoidable readmissions and hospital acquired conditions, and pilot programs to evaluate alternative payment methodologies that promote care coordination (such as bundled physician and hospital payments). The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (H.R. 2029), however, was signed into law in December 2015 and placed a moratorium on the 2.3% tax in both 2016 and 2017. They cannot predict what future healthcare legislation will be implemented at the federal or state level, nor the effect of any future legislation or regulation. However, any changes that lotheyr reimbursement for their products or reduce medical procedure volumes could adversely affect their business and results of operations.
The following table presents net sales to external customers for the seven major product categories (in millions):
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- Recent Historical Performance & Activity
As previously mentioned, St. Jude Medical operates as a single operating segment, deriving their revenues from seven principal product categories, because of this each segment’s performance is independent to a certain degree. In the last annual period St. Jude’s net sales decreased 1% compared to 2014. Foreign currency translation unfavorably decreased their 2015 net sales by 7% compared to 2014. Partially offsetting the unfavorable foreign currency translation impact. Net sales increased during 2015 compared to 2014 in the following key areas: