Stryker’s spine business keeps shrinking while its ASC business keeps growing. Here’s what that means.
The company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings, reported July 30, provide a snapshot of two forces reshaping the company’s strategy moving forward: its exit from spinal implants and the accelerating migration of procedures to ASCs.
Here is what leaders need to know from Stryker’s earnings call and financial report from the second quarter:
The spine business is now a rounding error
Stryker completed the sale of its U.S. spinal implants business to VB Spine, an entity formed by the investment firm Viscogliosi Brothers, on April 1, 2025. Over a year later, the financial implications of the transaction are much clearer. Stryker’s spinal implants net sales totaled $5 million for the first half of 2026 versus $171 million in the first half of 2025 — a 96.9% decline, according to the company’s second-quarter earnings report.
Kevin Lobo, CEO of Stryker, said when the divestiture was announced in 2025 that the move was a way to sharpen Stryker’s focus and redirect resources to “meet evolving customer needs and invest where we see the greatest opportunity for innovation,” while maintaining a strategic partnership with VB Spine.
Under that agreement, VB Spine has exclusive access to Stryker’s Mako Spine and Copilot navigation technology for use with spine implants, meaning Stryker still has a foothold in spine surgery, just not as an implant maker.
Those terms suggest Stryker is positioning itself as an infrastructure and technology player in the spinal space through robotics, navigation and pain management, rather than as a hardware manufacturer.
The ASC math keeps moving in one direction
The other trend line from the earnings call is the site-of-care shift. Mr. Lobo said on the second-quarter call that hip and knee replacement procedures are now running at roughly a 20% ASC mix, up from about 5% before the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that shift is expected to keep progressing steadily, tied largely to the pace of new ASC construction.
Stryker didn’t report an ASC mix figure specific to spine on the call, but spine surgery has followed a similar path to orthopedic and joint procedures industrywide, with lumbar fusion, decompression and some cervical procedures moving into outpatient and ASC settings. Stryker, alongside other medtech companies, is planning procedures that once required inpatient stays around ASC-compatible technology and workflows.
Why it matters together
Taken separately, the spine divestiture and the ASC growth numbers are two unrelated line items in an earnings report. Taken together, they create a more specific strategic picture: Stryker is stepping back from owning spine hardware just as the broader spine and orthopedic market accelerates toward lower-acuity, outpatient-friendly settings.
The company is choosing to compete in that shift through robotics, navigation and pain management tools rather than through implant manufacturing itself.
The numbers behind the quarter
According to the earnings report, Stryker’s overall second-quarter 2026 results included net sales of $6.6 billion, up 9.4% as reported, and orthopedics segment sales of about $3.0 billion, up 9.1%. For the full year, the company said it expects organic net sales growth in the range of 8.3% to 9.3% and adjusted net earnings per diluted share in the range of $14.95 to $15.10.
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