Boston Scientific Corporation (BSX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
December 2, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd here we are today to talk about Boston Scientific. Wow, you've had a big year, big 2 years, big 3 years. And I think one of the things I really would like to kick off with is sort of a view of where do we go from here? Because frequently, when I talk to investors, they know the story, thank you. They know the story, they love the story, but then there's this next phase. And you did a great analyst meeting very recently. But if you had to summarize next steps, what would you say?
Lauren Tengler
ExecutivesWhat a question, Joanne, wow. Thank you so much for hosting us. Maybe I'll start and just say. Thank you for acknowledging our great Investor Day. We thought it was a great day as well. And I think our goal of that day was to leave you with not only the excitement around what we have in hand at Boston Scientific today with growth drivers like FARAPULSE, WATCHMAN and others, but really a view on the future. So that's why we have Janar here today to talk a little bit more about some of those big adjacent markets that we want to enter into. And that's all with underlying strong market growth in the procedures we treat and the relentless focus on innovation to continue to bring more value to our products, our procedures and our patients.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsExcellent. Well, that just leads us straight into electrophysiology. And you have a few things going on in that area. Would you like to give us a state of the union?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesSure. The EP business, which has really had a tremendous run since our first introduction of FARAPULSE into the EU market back in '21. And as you know, we entered the U.S. market in '24 and then Japan and China subsequently. So we're growing, as you've seen in our numbers to date, probably 2x the market, driven by the ecosystem that is everything around FARAPULSE. So that is the FARAWAVE catheter, the approvals we've gotten for both PVI and PVI posterior wall said another way, both paroxysmal and persistent indications, as well as the integration of FARAWAVE into our OPAL Mapping System, which we commonly refer to FARANAV. There's a bigger ecosystem that I'm sure we'll get into. But as an example, if you look at PFA cases around the globe, it's not uncommon for other catheters to be pulled to do other complex ablations, touchups, et cetera. And just recently, I think we posted yesterday, we got approval in the EU for our FARAPOINT catheter. So as we've said, we have pending FDA approval for that catheter, and it's great to bring the CE Mark in. And that just -- that's one small example of how our ecosystem around the FARAPULSE system will continue to increase over the next few years.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsSo I think most investors have it down FARAPULSE OPAL, but now we're throwing in other FARA names. So simplistically, if you were going to describe the difference between FARAPOINT, FARAFLEX, and FARAPULSE. What makes one different than the other?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesSo if you think of our Workhorse product that we've been marketing now for 4 or 5 years, it's the FARAWAVE catheter. It's an over-the-wire. It can have multiple configurations, a wide basket, a wide flower shape, a basket shape. It can be manipulated into what people -- some call the olive shape. That has been our Workhorse catheter that has really, in my opinion, revolutionized the way that Afib is treated around the world. I'm sure we'll go on and on about this, but extremely high usability, replicatability, whether you're doing PVI plus posterior wall with Fluoro, with mapping system, with ICE, the utility and the replicatability of that workhorse product has really driven a lot of our success. So then to the part of your question, FARAPOINT looks like a traditional RF catheter. It is a single point catheter with multiple electrodes and think of that as your pinpointing lesions that you want to deliver, whereas with FARAWAVE, you're getting a very wide area of circumferential ablation to ablate a pulmonary vein. And then FARAFLEX, which I'm sure we'll get into, it kind of sits between FARAPOINT and FARAWAVE as a unique super high-density mapping catheter that gives you a much bigger footprint of ablation than a FARAPOINT catheter would get. So FARAWAVE, very wide area, very usable, highly applicable to PVI and broad posterior wall. FARAPOINT is like a touch-up tool. Think of that as a roller in painting versus a little art type to do touch up. And then FARAFLEX kind of sits right in the middle.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd so when you go to speak with a physician, are you selling all 3? Are they using all 3? I mean, I like the painting analogy here, but how do you think about that?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesWell, today, up until whatever it was yesterday, most of our conversations with physicians around the world were FARAWAVE on the OPAL Mapping System. That's the ecosystem that has driven our success really in every market around the globe. Now we will add to that starting immediately in Europe. And hopefully, in the next -- in the short term, we'll get FARAPOINT approved in the United States. And that expands our ecosystem, which, again, the ecosystem to date has been largely use FARAWAVE to do your index PVI, PVI plus something else. And this will add the ability not to pull an RF catheter as an example, you'll be able to go to PFA for point. And all of that is optimized in the OPAL mapping ecosystem.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsSo at the analyst meeting, I think you spoke about 80% worldwide transition to PFA at the end of your LRP. But with this type of portfolio, why 80%? And why is it going to take to 2028?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesI think it has to do with when did markets start. Really, if I had to pinpoint one answer, it's -- in Europe, it's hard to talk about Europe as a single market. It's 15 different markets that matter. But if you -- let me focus on the U.S. The U.S., as we said at Investor Day, very quickly went to greater than 50% penetration. And that's largely due to this broad applicability, replicatability of the FARAWAVE workload. So if I look at Japan or I look at China, right, it's when did they get approved and where are they on that journey. Now we're almost 2 years into the U.S. journey. We're 4 years into the European journey. So I think the rate and pace of penetration is closely tied to what technologies you have approved and what indications you have approved. So now with the approval of persistent AF in the United States and other markets, that will juice further penetration as will other products getting approved in the ecosystem that we call FARAPULSE.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsSo right now, most of the -- all -- it's not just most of the applications are on atrial fibrillation. And there was a little teaser at the analyst meeting about diabetes. And having been a student of med tech for a very long time, you never take technology into just one area of the human body. I've never seen like radio frequency in a narrow space. How do you think about ultimately taking post-field ablation into other applications?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesWell, I'll say, first of all, we're maniacally focused on expanding it in the $13 billion EP market.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsCapital market?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesYes. And that's $9 billion of AF and $4 billion of other things. So we spend the vast majority of our time on that and achieving category leadership in that space. I think we talked a little bit about some venture capital investments that we've made, for instance, in the diabetes type 2 indication. We don't really give a lot of details about those. But suffice it to say, we're looking at PFA applications in other places. But what dominates our thinking right now is how do we extend our leadership with our FARAPULSE ecosystem in EP.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd from in EP, we'll stick with that for now. How do you think about the changing competitive landscape? There will be a new market participant in the United States next year?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesYes. I mean, surprise, surprise, everything in cardiology has multiple competitors, and it's highly competitive. That's -- it's been that same way for the 35 years I've been in cardio. So that's kind of par for the course, right? So we have -- the good news in a PMA-driven market is you tend not to get surprised. So you can see what's happening in the CE Mark trials. You can see what's happening in IDE approval studies in the U.S. So suffice it to say, I think we have a very good understanding of what competition we will face and in what time frame. And so I can't do much about that other than make sure that our ecosystem, the 3 catheters that you talked about, the OPAL Mapping System, the OPAL Mapping Capacity, those are the things directly in our control that we remain super focused on.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsIs there anything about what happened in Europe with competitive introduction that you can say, this is what we learned from there, and then this is how we anticipated in the U.S.
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesI think what we've learned, I spoke about earlier, and that is the uniqueness of the FARAWAVE flower and basket combination and its applicability to PVI, ablating pulmonary veins and doing other work like posterior wall is, I think, completely unique to FARAWAVE as a workhorse tool. And what we learned is other entrants aren't quite that extendable, replicatable in all of those use indications.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsOkay. And when we think about the next wave of technology, in my investor conversations, we're spending more time on WATCHMAN. Not that this is new, but that there is some data coming out next year that people might be focused on. How do you think about the WATCHMAN franchise growing over the years, accelerating with option and then what Champion may or may not help out with?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesYes. I think we've been very consistent in saying our long-term view of WATCHMAN as a 20-plus percent growth engine for BSC depends on both OPTION and CHAMPION being positive. And obviously, OPTION this time last year was presented and published in the New England Journal. We've said that CHAMPION, which I should probably describe CHAMPION for a second because it is different than OPTION. So OPTION was a trial where we said, let's randomize all patients get an ablation. Half of them stay on anticoagulants, half of them get a WATCHMAN place. And let's see what the clinical outcomes are there. CHAMPION does not require ablation. It takes frontline randomization, NOAC-eligible patients. Half of them stay on NOACs, half of them are implanted with WATCHMAN. And that trial, which is 3,000 patients, 3 years of follow-up, the first big, large statistically powered head-to-head trial for first-line indication. That's the CHAMPION study, and it will be presented. We haven't been super specific, first half of '26 that should read out.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd then once it is read out, assuming it is positive, what are the steps to it being implemented?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesYes. So the first thing is we have to get our label updated because today, you could say whether you look -- and I won't go through all the gory details, we are not labeled for first-line therapy in most markets. And then there's the difference between what does our approved label say and then what does reimbursement look like. And that's different all around the world. So the first thing we'll do is we'll go to update the label. So if you look at OPTION, as soon as we got that data, we began updating the label. It took us 8-ish months to get the label to include concomitant ablation. So we'll first work on label, then we will also work on the guidelines. So the societal cardiology guidelines around the world will work with those groups to get the guidelines changed. And then we will go after reimbursement in all the major markets around the world. So for instance, in the United States, there's a national coverage decision that indicates and dictates how and when WATCHMAN is reimbursed. So we'll take a label update, guideline update, and then we'll -- again, with positive CHAMPION data, we'll negotiate with CMS to open the NCD to expand the indicated patient population. And I'll shorten this answer. So what we said multiple times is we believe that the CHAMPION indication expands the population eligible for WATCHMAN to approximately 20 million patients around the globe. I think that's 3 or 4x bigger than our current. So that drives the reimbursement, the label, et cetera, drives nearly a tripling of the WATCHMAN TAM to $6 billion by 2030.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd what we've seen in other data presentations is once it's out there, doctors start to change their practice even before you go through the label and the reimbursement and everything else. Can we expect the same thing here?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesI think so. I think people do pay attention to late breakers and it begins to change practice long before some of that happens. But I think we've been pretty clear that label guidelines, reimbursement, that doesn't happen overnight. So that's why we've been pretty focused on what does the WATCHMAN, the LAAC market opportunity look like at 2030 because I don't think I'm surprising anybody, this guidelines don't happen overnight.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsI heard that. Very good. Janar, thank you so much for joining us. I don't feel like you have had as much sunshine on the Boston Scientific platform.
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesOkay. No problem.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsThat's okay. But I think maybe if you could share with us the products which are fall under your umbrella because I think those are some of the ones that are really the drivers that came out of the analyst meeting.
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. So I mean, I think if you look at how we view interventional cardiology at Boston Scientific, we basically try and cover every product that an interventional cardiologist may have some involvement with, and we share some of that leadership with the WATCHMAN franchise as well. But the things that we obviously cover that have been core to us for several decades is coronary therapies. Within that, we're very excited about intravascular lithotripsy that is currently enrolling in a trial at the moment with our seismic device. Of course, everyone is aware that we recently acquired an RDN device, renal denervation that also falls under our purview as well. And we're also in the process of getting soon to start a trial next year using an LV support device, which is an in-house developed product called VITALYST, which is a pump. But we essentially cover the broad spectrum of what an interventional cardiologist does, which, as you know, if you give us a wire and a balloon, we'll take it anywhere.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsI like that approach. But let's start first with the seismic device for IVL. Can you remind us of how you think about that clinical trial, the market opportunity and being a disruptor in that space?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. So maybe I'll start with the market opportunity first because that's how we've approached the device and the product and where we see IVL fitting in. When we met at Investor Day, we talked about where we view IVL. We have been very, very maniacal and Joe talked about surrounding the EP with an ecosystem. It's no different for us in interventional cardiology. In coronary therapies, interventionalists want a toolbox. They want a lot of different tools, right, imaging, different options to treat and prep of the lesion is very key to that. So we structure our portfolio and our investments and how we educate with a moniker of C, PrEP and treat. And within the PrEP box, we focus IVL as being one of the 3 tools that we will have, hopefully, for calcium, which is cutting balloon, rotational atherectomy and IVL. So seismic is a tool that we're very familiar with. It's a product that was developed internally at Boston Scientific, and it's a reflection of our investment and innovation in that space. But the catheter has some unique features in that it's got 2 sets of emitters at either side of a balloon. There's 4 emitters at each of those points. And so it allows circumferential delivery of energy. The energy is delivered using laser and think of it a little bit like an earthquake. So it creates a little explosion in the balloon and the waves are what go out and crack that calcium. And the reason that's so important is that if you look at our practice and therapy in the cath lab that's changed is our patients are getting more and more complex. And what is the enemy of the interventionalist in the cath lab is calcium, which at least roughly about 1/3 of patients that come to the cath lab have calcified coronary artery disease. And that number is only going to increase as our patients are getting older with more comorbidities, more renal failure. So we see that as being a very important toolbox to have. The product also has some other differentiating factors in that it's got very visible emitters. And so you can see it very easily. Deliverability so far has been very promising. And we also have seen some early promising signs about efficacy of the product, which, of course, is important to physicians.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsAnd what is the time line to bring it to market and for us to see the clinical data?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. So we're currently enrolling in the Fracture IDE study that's well into enrollment. We anticipate completion of that in Q1 of 2026, and we're looking at a commercial launch in the coronary use of the product in the first half of 2027.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsWhen will we see the data?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesIt will be next year.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsNext year. First half of '26, first, second half.
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesWe haven't made a decision yet as to which meeting it will be, but you will see the data in 2026, the 30-day endpoint.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsVery good. And that brings us to some of the products that you're working on also in renal denervation, and that came through an acquisition. And what made that the right acquisition at this time? And also, I'm going to add to that, I have a memory of Boston Scientific having a renal denervation program way, way long ago. Why is this the right technology at this time?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. So if you look at the history of renal denervation, as you know, it's not been a straightforward road. It's been an incredibly bumpy road for anyone involved in the space. And we similarly evaluate different spaces all the time and our viewpoint changes with regards to it. And the clinical data has evolved over time and become much more promising. This particular asset has been part of our VC portfolio. It's -- we like to take investments in bets and innovation. And the reason we keep came back to this is that hypertension is incredibly common in our community. 1 in 4 adult Americans have hypertension. And for anyone that's tried to lose weight with lifestyle medications, and I mean, put your hand up if you've ever completed a course of antibiotics, I certainly haven't. But medical therapy is challenging for a lot of patients in terms of compliance. And so having a device-based therapy provides another option. And it's an opportunity to treat quite a lot of patients, which is why we went back to it. This particular technology is ultrasound-based in terms of its energy, and we feel pretty compelled that, that is a pretty efficacious way in order to denervate the arteries compared to radio frequency. And one of the reasons we like the product as well is the ease of use. It's an incredibly simple device to use. I mean we chatted about it at Investor Day. It's probably one of the few products in interventional cardiology is one moving part. There's nothing to really do with it. It's a single device can be used for all patients. You don't have to size the vessel. And so ease of use is also another thing that really attracted us about this particular asset.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsSo why is ultrasound better than RF at this stage?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. So I think for a couple of things in that with this particular technology, ultrasound has the potential to have a greater depth of penetration. And if you look at radio frequency ablation, I mean, you made the comment, we take these technologies in different spaces. Radiofrequency ablation needs to have some particular planning and application of where you deliver the energy. You have to be very precise about it, no matter whether it's in the renal artery or somewhere else in the body. The benefit of this is that there's less operator-specific use for it. You just place it and this -- the ultrasound is circumferential. And so it's less operator specific in terms of technique, and that helps you in terms of ease of use as well.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsSo anything in the reimbursement -- CMS reimbursement guidelines, which came out recently that you were like, yes, that works for us or anything that caused you pause as we relate to renal genervation?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesI think the recent NCD recommendations were similar to what they had kind of proposed earlier on. So there wasn't necessarily a big surprise to what they had shared earlier. Just to look at what they've shown was patients with uncontrolled hypertension, they need to have a single physician that sees them over 3 different visits over a 6-month period. You have to fail very similar to other therapies, which is you have to fail lifestyle intervention, medical therapy and then you become eligible. So it's a fairly standard process for routine care. I think what we'll have to see is how this impacts access in terms of the center availability. But in terms of the patient journey, it's very similar. And we were very reassured that there were also virtual options for visits put in there because trying to see a physician sometimes in person can be tough for patients.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsOne of the things which comes up, and this is going to impact both of our conversations is having enough access, enough access to a cath lab and enough access to mappers. How do you think about these as hurdles for both of your franchises in terms of utilization and moving things forward?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesWell, I think they're radically different. I'll let Janar comment on the hypertension capacity question, EP. If you look around the world, every market is dominated by very large teams of mappers in electrophysiology and a very large footprint of mapping systems. So we get asked the question a lot, like, well, what is BSC doing? Because I think it would be fair to say a few years ago, we didn't have a whole bunch of mapping capacity, and we didn't have a bunch of install. Well, the good news for us, as soon as we kind of knew that the U.S. approval was imminent, we began with a very strategic and tactical program to significantly expand our mapping capability and capacity. What does that mean? Think of that as hiring multitudes of hundreds of mappers beginning in late '23. So if you look today where we are 24 months later, we don't give specific numbers, but we have dramatically increased that capacity, both people and systems to have the OPAL, FARAPULSE ecosystem available to accounts all over the world. So -- and I'm sure we'll get asked, I don't know if we said it before, but compared to where we were, which wasn't that great, 2 years later, we have significantly expanded both the capacity and capability of our FARAPULSE OPAL ecosystem.
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. I think when you think about hypertension, coming back to that about the long journey of RDN. I think the way that we view that particular market is before we start thinking about access, which, of course, will become an issue to address. But I think before that is also just making physicians and patients aware of the therapy. So there's going to be a significant amount of therapy development that will be needed for that space, very similar to the journey that we went on as a company with WATCHMAN, right, educating patients about the options. And we view that space as being a very similar kind of thing that we will need to do and contribute to the space, which is educating both the referrers, but also the patients themselves about the therapy. The capacity side of things, this is, again, another reason we like this particular asset. It's not a complicated procedure to do. The infrastructure and ecosystem of the device itself is very small in terms of footprint. The equipment and workflow needed is very similar to any cath lab. So any interventional can learn this and do this in a standard cath lab setup. There's not a lot of accessory equipment needed. So it fits into the regular workflow very easily as a procedure.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsBoth of your procedure buckets, and I'm speaking big picture here, are mostly hospital-based, but we keep seeing more and more moving into the ASC, including the opportunity for PFA being moved into the ASC. How do you think about that trend or flow over the next few years?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesSo it's very clear, and I think CMS reiterated this in the latest outpatient that their goal is to take all of the inpatient-only procedures and move them to outpatient. Stated goal of CMS, we applaud that, and we have to prepare for that. With that, you have big markets, big procedural base like all PCI and all ablations have now been approved to move to the ambulatory surgery center site of service. So we have to think about the ecosystem that we sell into that environment versus an inpatient only. And I really applaud our teams because that's probably going to look a little bit different when you think about ablation procedures than what the physician, what the site gets to use in an inpatient only. So deeply embedded in our strategy is if that different -- if that ecosystem of products and what's wrapped around the procedure is different, we have to be prepared for that. And I for one in the EP space, feel very confident that we've got a very broad spectrum of things that we can sell into each of those inpatient, outpatient and ASC environments and contend for leadership.
Lauren Tengler
ExecutivesAnd maybe just to add a little bit on the logistics of moving to ASC for ablations. There's roughly 5 states today that have the cardiovascular ASC and are unencumbered by a certificate of need. And therefore, you're likely to see some movement sooner there. But broadly speaking, this will take time and won't be necessarily an overnight. But as Joe said, we see Boston Scientific's portfolio of products as being uniquely suited to do really well in that ASC space, and we've been preparing for that.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsExcellent. Cardiac Rhythm Management is a space that I felt like I stopped talking about for years and suddenly, I'm talking about it again. At Boston Scientific, how do you think about the newer products which are being introduced and some of the market share shifting and growth dynamics of the subsector or the subdivision?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesYes. So if I think about the CRM global market, it's admittedly the lowest growth market that we compete in -- in cardiovascular. However, I think it's also fair to say that we have fallen behind that market growth. And that's largely due to our product portfolio. If you look at the big categories that have driven the CRM market growth, 2 of them are conduction system pacing and leads, right? So conduction system pacing, the good news for us is we got most of our conduction system pacing portfolio now is approved in the United States and most recently got approved in Europe. So that's a gap that we are in the process of filling. If you look at leadless, which is our both Empower and modular systems, those are in at review at FDA. We don't have approval today, but that will allow us to create an offense in leadless. The other thing that we talked about on the call, I think, the Q3 call is -- and I'll try to make a very complex project, very simple and short. For us, about once every 20 years, we have to do a complete revamp of our CRM portfolio. The last time we did that was in 2006, '07, '08, where we launched COGNIS and TELIGEN. That was a complete reboot of our CRM portfolio. So we started that program about 5 or 6 years ago. I think Mike referenced it as Denali. That's just the internal name, that's not the product name. So we are now in the very late innings of finishing that next-gen CRM total reboot. So think about every active implantable cardiac rhythm management device that we sell, everything from pacers to CRT-D is in a complete refresh. While you're doing that, you probably starve the business a little bit for some of those things that you'd like to deliver to the market, deliver to your sales team. But the good news is we're in the very late innings of finishing that program. So when I think -- when you look at the long-range plan that we talked about in September, right, you saw us committing to at or above market growth. And a big part of that is the fact that we will have that once every 20 years CRM platform delivered in the long-range plan. We just filled, as I said earlier, the conduction system pacing gaps. And then we're on the cusp of getting our leadless EMPOWER platform approved.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsExcellent. I was surprised might be the right word at analysts say back into structural heart, back into not the WATCHMAN side of structural heart, but the TAVR mitral tricuspid side of structural heart. I guess it goes into the topic of there's more to come maybe. I'm not sure how to interpret that.
Lauren Tengler
ExecutivesYes. So that was a VC investment and TAVR, mitral and tricuspid. So nothing specific. But I would say, in general, we've said if we have some history with TAVR to say the least. And if we were to get back into TAVR, it would have to be a highly differentiated product that would allow us an opportunity to be more of a leader than a follower. We have a lot of different opportunities across the portfolio to invest in, and that might be an area of interest for the company.
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesThe analogy I draw is there's no way our interventional cardiology broad coronary therapy, structural heart. There's no time on earth where we're going to ignore an $8 billion to $10 billion segment like structural heart. At the other end of that spectrum, I'll give you an example. So if you look at our electrophysiology business, there's a segment within the $13 billion market that is imaging, basically 2D and 4D ICE. That's probably a one point -- plus $1 billion segment that we have not been in, but we've recently introduced 3 or 4 ways that we're going to get into that market. So that's a good example of where we relentlessly pursue category leadership. So there's no way our EP business gets a pass and says, "Oh, imaging, $1 billion -- whatever, $1.3 billion, we're really not interested in that." If it's a big component of the procedure and the ecosystem that the physician uses, we are focused on that. So you'll see the CHORUS introduction in second half, that's our 2D ICE. You just saw our 4D ICE partnership with Siemens, and we've been public about our AI partnership with Anumana to take to another level the ability of things like 2D ICE or TEE to help support both structural and EP procedures. So that's a really here and now example where we've been very public about those 3 or 4 things that we have planned to enter and disrupt the $1 billion-plus imaging market in the EP structural space.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsThere you go. I think we have time for 1 or 2 more questions, but I'm going to actually pivot slightly to artificial intelligence and how you think about applying it into the organization, product development? And is it something that becomes a revenue stream, a product or just something that makes it easier to get through approvals?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesI think because we already have approval for it, Janar, why don't you talk about imaging and how we're using AI there, and then I'll talk about EP.
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesYes. I mean within our franchise for interventional cardiology, when you look at our portfolio, we launched our next-generation IVA system AVVIGO+, and that has artificial intelligence integrated through it. So think of it a little bit like your iPhone. You get a software update every couple of years. That's our intent with this device in this product is that the artificial intelligence component of the imaging system makes image interpretation easier for the physician. So each time, every few years, they'll get a new update where the assessment of the lesion, vessel sizing, stent placement all becomes quicker, easier and more efficient for them in the lab. Artificial intelligence is something we're highly focused on as a company and the other way is internally in terms of improving efficiency within our teams. It's a tremendous opportunity for any industry. So we're looking at it not just within our product portfolio, which is key, but also just within how we run teams and trials and even just efficiencies across our workforce.
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesAnd on the EP side, you'll see in 2026 AI applied to transesophageal echo to support the WATCHMAN procedure. And then later on, after we get CHORUS approved, which is our 2D ICE, '27 and beyond, you'll see AI doing image interpolation, image creation to facilitate ablations. Those will be our first 2 moves using AI.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsExcellent. And then my favorite question, as I always close out, when we're together here next year, what do you think we're going to be talking about?
Joseph Fitzgerald
ExecutivesWhat I hope we continue to talk about far, far into the future is how well the category leadership strategy at Boston Scientific plays. And it doesn't matter if it's neuromod, neuro, EP, interventional, endo, right, our game plan of committing to category leadership. And that goes beyond -- oh, we just want to be a leader in endoscopy. No, we want to be a leader in any major category that defines the endoscopy space. So what the heck am I do when talking about endoscopy? Well, it's the example because under Mike's leadership, our category leadership, which drives our tactical go-to-market commercial strategy, it drives our internal R&D innovation machine, and it also drives our extensive investment in innovation through VC bets early ownership interest in technology. So we think that's really driven our success over the last 10-plus years, and there's no intention to change that when you look at the next 10 years because why it works. We think it works.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsJanar?
Janarthanan Sathananthan
ExecutivesSo I think we gave a little teaser of this at Investor Day. And obviously, being a clinician, I'm biased, but I think we chatted about this earlier. I think next year, we'll be talking a lot about clinical trials. You're seeing that major trials like CHAMPION or anything that's a late breaker really has a tremendous opportunity to change practice, change markets, change how patients are treated. And we, as a company, whether you look at any aspect of our divisions, we're investing a lot in science, right, in interventional cardiology or EP, whatever you look at it. So we have a number of trials coming up next year, the few years after that. And I think we'll be spending a lot of time talking about that next year.
Joanne Wuensch
AnalystsWonderful. Joe, Janar, Lauren, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us here, and I hope you have a great day.
Lauren Tengler
ExecutivesThank you. Thanks, Joanne.
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