Boston Scientific logoBoston Scientific

(Nasdaq:BSX)

today announced Q1 results that beat the overall consensus forecast on Wall Street.

The Marlborough, Massachusetts-based company reported profits of $314 million, or 21¢ per share, on sales of $3.4 billion for the three months ended March 31, 2023, for a bottom-line gain of 185.5% on sales growth of 12% compared with Q1 2022.

Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were 47¢, 4¢ ahead of The Street, where analysts were looking for $3.16 billion in sales.

“I’m pleased with our excellent results this quarter, which highlight our team’s strong performance across each business and region,” CEO Mike Mahoney said in a news release. “With a robust pipeline in 2023 and beyond, I’m optimistic about our ability to continue to deliver differentiated financial performance and the opportunity to reach more patients with life-changing therapies.”

In addition to the earnings beat, Boston Scientific mostly upped its guidance for the year. For the full year 2023, the company expects net sales growth to be approximately 8.5–10.5% on a reported basis and approximately 8-10% on an organic basis. It estimates GAAP EPS to be in the range of 93¢–$1.02 and adjusted EPS, excluding certain charges, of $1.90–$1.96.

The company’s previous full-year guidance was 5–7% sales growth on a reported basis, 6–8% sales growth on an organic basis, GAAP EPS of $1.11–$1.21, and adjusted EPS of $1.86–$1.93.

Shares in BSX were down less than a percentage point at market open. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was down slightly.

Truist analysts said Boston Scientific’s earnings report made it stand out as one of the stronger growth profiles in large-cap medtech.

Said Truist’s Richard Newitter, Samuel Brodovsky and Lin Zhang: “No doubt, we believe expectations across medtech have been elevating by the day on strong utilization data points and robust earnings from others who have reported thus far. Still, we think this print and guidance raise is excellent, and we would expect the stock to be up (even on elevated expects).”

The Truist analysts later mused that perhaps management’s “no comment” party line on potential large M&A deals held down the stock. “For our part, we come away from the [quarter] incrementally positive on the stock and reinforced in our Buy thesis.”

Mike Matson at Needham & Co. called it a “deal elephant in the room,” given a recent anonymously sourced Bloomberg article saying that Boston Scientific is considering and acquisition of Shockwave Medical.