Stryker’s second quarter looked normal from a distance: $6.6 billion in revenue, up 9.4 percent, and net earnings of $1.3 billion. Underneath, manufacturing is still running hot to work off orders that piled up while systems were down in March.
The medical beds division carries the heaviest load. Kevin Lobo said “Making beds takes time, and we were out of production for a long period,” and the company does not expect the backlog to reach a manageable level until the end of the third quarter. A separate supply problem at a plant that makes most Inari products added backorders on top.
Full-year organic growth guidance narrowed to 8.3 to 9.3 percent, with IT remediation charges still flowing through. Recovery from a March outage now has an end date in October, which is the number every business continuity plan should borrow.