Earnings season closed out with a theme nobody put in a press release: the price of playing just went up.
Boston Scientific put a $700–800 million number on fixing its own cost structure. Stryker spent the quarter buying back the month a cyberattack took from it. The FDA raised submission fees nearly 10% and the FTC showed digital health companies what non-compliance costs. Meanwhile, the companies with balance sheets kept converting cash into position — MiMedx nearly doubling its surgical business in one stroke, Medtronic writing another venture check in electrophysiology, Abbott turning a partner’s FDA approval into a portfolio play. Last week wasn’t about who has the best technology. It was about who can afford the entry fee.
8 things to watch this week:
The FDA approved SimpleScreen CRC, Freenome’s blood-based colorectal cancer screening test, which Abbott will exclusively commercialize in the U.S. beginning this fall — triggering a $100 million milestone payment to Freenome under their 2025 agreement. The strategic tell: Abbott now sells both Cologuard and a blood test, and analysts expect it to position SimpleScreen for patients who refuse or never complete the stool test — a portfolio answer to screening drop-off, and a direct shot at Guardant’s Shield.
Fierce Biotech
Boston Scientific approved a restructuring plan expected to cost $700–800 million in pre-tax charges, eliminate positions, and cut roughly $500 million in annual expenses by 2029 — then lowered its 2026 sales and earnings outlook days later on the Q2 call. Watchman and electrophysiology remain the drag, and management doesn’t expect either to improve soon. When the industry’s best-executing large cap of the last three years starts paying to shrink, the PFA share war has officially become expensive for everyone.
MD+DI
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The FTC, joined by Utah and Los Angeles County, sued the telehealth giant July 29, alleging it shared sensitive health information with advertising platforms including Meta and Snap despite privacy-forward marketing, and deceived customers on billing and cancellation. The agency has already gone after Cerebral, GoodRx, and BetterHelp on similar grounds — any device or digital health company running ad pixels against patient-facing funnels should read this complaint as addressed to them.
MedTech Dive
MiMedx agreed to acquire Sanara MedTech in a $350 million cash-and-stock deal at $35 per share — a 46% premium — combining its surgical portfolio with Sanara’s wound care and bone fixation technologies, including the FDA Breakthrough-designated OsStic bioadhesive slated for 2027 launch. The company expects the deal to nearly double its surgical revenue. Mid-cap consolidation in regenerative surgery is accelerating while the megacaps are distracted elsewhere.
MPO Magazine
Stryker reported $6.6 billion in Q2 revenue, up 9.4%, and narrowed its guidance as it continues digging out from the March cyberattack that halted order processing, shipping, and manufacturing for nearly a month — CEO Kevin Lobo told investors the order backlog should reach a manageable level by the end of Q3. Five months after the breach, the incident is still shaping quarterly results — the clearest case study yet of what operational cyber risk actually costs a device manufacturer.
MassDevice
Medtronic led an oversubscribed $37 million Series C for CoreMap, whose ultra-high-resolution electrode technology visualizes AFib activity that conventional mapping systems miss — the investment comes just weeks after Medtronic backed thrombectomy startup RapidPulse. The pattern is now unmistakable: rather than acquiring outright, Medtronic is seeding the next generation of cardiovascular technology with minority checks and waiting to see what proves out.
Cardiovascular Business
The FDA set its FY 2027 MDUFA base revenue at $418 million, a 14% jump from FY 2026, with most submission fees rising about 10%; annual establishment registration fees climb nearly 21%. The new rates take effect October 1. For smaller companies budgeting 510(k)s and PMAs into next year, the regulatory line item just got materially bigger — worth re-running the submission timeline math now, not in Q4.
RAPS
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