By the numbers
Q3 sales: $1.55 billion
14.7% increase year over year
TAVR sales: $1.15 billion
12.4% increase year over year
TMTT sales: $145.2 million
59.3% increase year over year
Edwards Lifesciences CFO Scott Ullem will step down by mid-2026, the company said Thursday, along with the release of its third-quarter earnings.
Ullem, who has held the position since 2014, will continue in an advisory role after his replacement is appointed. Edwards said it is initiating a process to select a new CFO.
Ullem is the second top executive at the company to step down in as many months. Larry Wood, the corporate vice president who helped build Edwards’ market-leading transcatheter aortic valve replacement business in his two decades with the company, left in September to become CEO of Procept BioRobotics.
“While we expect Ullem’s extended tenure at the company will be missed … it is not a bad time to ‘pass the baton’, given the company’s current strategic and financial position,” Truist analyst Richard Newitter wrote in a note Friday.
In its earnings report, Edwards said TAVR sales rose year over year by 12.4% to $1.15 billion, better than the company had expected, prompting it to raise its sales and profit forecasts for the full year. Analysts applauded the return to double-digit TAVR growth.
Still, CEO Bernard Zovighian cautioned against reading too much into the accelerated growth rate. On the earnings call, he attributed the TAVR outperformance to a renewed focus on the procedure among physicians, thanks to the release of further positive clinical evidence and updated treatment guidelines in Europe. In addition, the company did not see a slowdown in procedures this summer, which is typical for the season.
“We expect a good Q4, better than we originally thought, but I will not take the Q3 results as the new normal for TAVR,” Zovighian said.
The CEO spent much of the call highlighting new study results, presented at the recent Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting, that support its TAVR and mitral and tricuspid valve treatments.
Zovighian said the early introduction of the Sapien M3 valve for mitral regurgitation, which received a CE mark in the second quarter, was “off to a great start” in Europe. Edwards expects U.S. approval of the device by early 2026.
The CEO also addressed the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge to Edwards’ planned $945 million acquisition of JenaValve Technology. In August, the agency raised concerns that the deal would threaten competition in the market for devices to treat aortic regurgitation.
Responding to an analyst’s question, Zovighian said Edwards continues to pursue regulatory approval of the deal and is hoping for a favorable ruling by the first quarter of 2026.
