Partnership with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in robotics
“In Medical devices in line with our priority to accelerate growth through innovation we announced in March definitive agreement to collaborate with Google Life Sciences to advance development of a surgical robotics program which we see as an important step in our commitment to advancing surgical care around the world.”
Sales growth rate would fall by 7% if currencies stayed here
As of last week the euro was lower by approximately 17% as compared to 2014 average levels and the dollar has strengthened recently versus virtually all major currencies. And though we are not predicting the impact of currency movements to give you an idea of the potential impact on sales if currency exchange rates were to remain where they were as of last week for the balance of the year our sales growth rate would decrease by nearly 7% reflecting the weakening of the euro and other major currencies against the U.S. dollar.”
At this stage of the year we would be comfortable with your models reflecting the midpoint of this range
“our reported adjusted EPS range will range from $6.04 to $6.19 per share primarily due to the increased headwind of currency on ESP of $0.18 per share which is partially offset by our improved operating performance of approximately $0.10 per share.
At this stage and year we would be comfortable with your models reflecting the midpoint of this range.”
The US needs to lower corporate tax rates
“On the repatriation question, we’re still firm believers that the ultimate conclusion here is a much more competitive corporate tax system in the U.S. I can’t speak for what GE did but this not alter our view that its currently uneconomical to repatriate those earnings at such a high corporate tax burden and we’d much rather see our government move in the direction of lowering that tax burden for corporation, getting that cash back to the U.S and invested more appropriate without the burden of this extra tax spike, but I can’t comment on why or whether we would do something similar as to what GE did.”
Consumer spending environment is healthier
“We’re very pleased with the consumer businesses progress over the last several years actually and now we’re seeing that progress result in higher sales levels, for couple of reasons. I think overall the market is healthier in consumer spending is what we see. ”
About the google partnership
“We’ve now obviously partnered with Google to gain their expertise in technology and visualization and in robotics and I think that’s going to provide us some acceleration to the plans we were already anticipating.
We’re already in the market for robotics in terms of our particular – in terms of particular procedures where our Ethicon products are used at the end of the robot, at the actually procedure end of the robot. So we’ll continue to do that. We would expect this collaboration would take – I would say several years for us to come to the market with the new type of robotic surgery that we think we’ll dramatically revolutionize surgery. So, I think it will take some time to do that, but we’re accelerating our efforts there and I’d say it’s a couple of years away.”
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