Teladoc's stock slides despite business growth

Teladoc Health on Tuesday reported solid third quarter earnings showing $660 million in revenue for 8% year-over-year growth and improvement across business lines including BetterHelp and its closely watched chronic care segment.

But while its adjusted earnings and other benchmarks are headed in the right direction, CEO Jason Gorevic said on Teladoc's investor call that he was disappointed in the performance of the company's stock, which is down about 22% this year. This underscores not only broader market trends but a skittishness about the company's slowing growth.

The company has already embarked on efforts to cut costs and boost performance. On the call, Gorevic pointed to improving margins on BetterHelp and noted that the company would be slowing down on investments, like the company's disastrous takeover of Livongo in 2020. To reassure investors, Gorevic noted that the company would take additional steps to boost efficiency in an effort to "drive profit growth at a level that is meaningfully higher than our revenue growth over the next few years."

Q&A

Medtronic CEO on managing a sprawling business

With a valuation of nearly $100 billion and a hand in nearly every clinical area, Medtronic is gigantic. In a new interview, CEO Geoff Martha told STAT's Lizzy Lawrence that one of the strategies for managing a company that seems to be doing so much is "playing small and playing big at the same time" by, for example, focusing on platform technologies for implantable batteries and electronics that can be used in multiple business lines.

Martha also answered questions about the company's challenges developing device solutions for diabetes and high blood pressure.

Medical Devices

Boston Scientific floats new data on balloon to fight heart attacks

In more devices news, Lizzy reports on new data from Boston Scientific suggesting that a drug-coated balloon could reduce the risk of heart attack in people with complications from stents.

The treatment is meant for patients whose arteries have shrunk even after receiving a stent to open up the clogged vessel. Stent placement sometimes causes scar tissue to build up and prevent blood flow. Cardiologists can use drug-eluting stents to prevent scar formation, but the condition still occurs in around 10% of patients who have those stents implanted. The disorder, called in-stent restenosis, can cause chest pain and increase risk of heart attack.

Partial data presented by investigators at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference suggests that patients in this group who were implanted with balloons coated with a chemotherapy called paclitaxel were less likely to have heart attacks than those implanted with control balloons. The data is incomplete now but may be supportive of an eventual filing with the Food and Drug Administration. An outside researcher, however, said they would like to see longer term outcome data before passing judgment.

In related news: This morning, Boston Scientific reported third quarter sales of $3.5 billion, up over 10% from a year ago.

What we're reading

Brain-computer interface helps ALS patient control devices, navigate communication board, News Medical
Microsoft's edge in AI pays off while Google tries to catch up in the cloud, FT
The cardiologist building digital tools to help colleagues stay on top of new research, STAT