Smith+Nephew (NYSE:SNN) shares ticked up today as it announced a new CEO along with its quarterly earnings.
Shares of SNN were up 6.4% at $34.67 per share in late-afternoon trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up 1%.
The company confirmed that Dr. Deepak Nath will succeed Roland Diggelmann in the role of CEO after Diggelmann steps down, a move that will be made as a result of a mutual agreement.
Nath will begin as CEO on April 1, 2022, after Diggelmann departs on March 31, 2022, according to a news release.
“It has been a privilege to lead Smith+Nephew,” Diggelmann said in the release. “I would like to thank my colleagues across the business for their tireless efforts to support our customers and communities, and continue to deliver against the backdrop of COVID. I look forward to seeing the business go from strength to strength under Deepak’s leadership.”
Nath worked at Siemens Healthineers from 2018 to 2022, having most recently served as the company’s president of diagnostics. Before Siemens, he held a number of senior roles at Abbott over the course of about a decade, eventually becoming president of Abbott’s vascular business and an executive officer of the company.
Other companies Nath worked for include Amgen and Mckinsey and Company, while he also worked as a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
“Smith+Nephew is a great company with innovation at its core and a purpose of life unlimited, supporting patients around the world in returning to a healthy and fulfilled life,” Nath said. “I am honored to have been given the opportunity to lead the business. I look forward to building on Smith+Nephew’s rich history and heritage and working with the team to take it to the next level of growth.”
Along with announcing the major executive change, Smith+Nephew confirmed its latest quarterly financial results.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 (ended Dec. 31, 2021), the London-based medtech company posted sales of nearly $1.35 billion, representing an uptick of 1.5% from the company’s sales of $1.33 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The company expects underlying revenue growth for the full-year 2022 to range between 4% and 5%, translating to around 2.6% to 3.6% reported revenue growth.
“We finished 2021 with a solid fourth quarter, despite nearly a week less trading than in 2020 and the impact of Omicron, which affected the typical quarter-end pick up in average daily sales,” Diggelmann said. “Smith+Nephew is well placed to continue to take advantage of the opportunities we see to drive shareholder returns, including through a new share buy-back program.”