All right. Good afternoon. I'm Jason Bednar, covering MedTech here at Piper. Our next fireside chat is with Merit Medical. Very happy to have with us today Merit CEO Martha Aronson and also CFO Raul Parra. Thanks a lot for being here, both of you. Always a pleasure to have Merit as part of our conference here. I thought we'd get right into Q&A. And, Martha, I'll start with you. I think it's been two months since you joined the company. So welcome. Fairly eventful start here to get going. And we'll get into some of what's transpired here since you joined early October. Maybe for those investors here and listening in, you know, that aren't as familiar with you, maybe give just a brief background from some of your time at Hillrom and Ecolab, and what are some of the experiences that you're going to draw upon as you move forward and, you know, employ your strategy here at Merit? Jason, thanks. The pleasure to be here. Yeah, I mean, I, I've been in the medical device industry almost 30 years, and, actually sort of cut my teeth, if you will, at, at Medtronic back in the day. And then, as you said, spent some time at, both Hillram and Ecolab. And, you know, I, I think a couple, couple of the key experiences along the way, if you will, right? I mean, those are all very global companies. One of them was actually about the size that Merit Medical is now, about $1.5 billion when I joined. And also did a great deal of sort of market development work at Medtronic, had an international assignment there, so got some good global exposure. Was lucky enough to run a couple functions, one of them being investor relations for a short period of time. So fun to be back with investors, certainly. So those are sort of some of the places I've visited, if you will, along the way to Merit Medical. All right. Great. And then as you've now, like, got, you know, kind of gotten your feet wet at Merit, you're probably feeling a bit more comfortable starting to put your stamp on things, lean into certain elements of the strategy, making tweaks where needed. Can you talk about some of the areas where you might be making adjustments because, based on your background, you think there's easy opportunities for faster revenue growth or business efficiencies? Yeah. Look, I mean, Merit's a very successful company. For those of you that have been following it, Merit has a really strong track record, particularly in the last five years of, you know, saying what we're gonna do and going out and doing it. So we absolutely wanna continue to do that. We wanna continue to be a growth company. I t's a little early on month two to lay out the long-term strategy, if you will, but I think it's fair to say that what Merit does, which is grow by both organic investment and inorganic, that will continue to happen. W e have our continuous growth initiatives which go through the end of 2026, and so that actually gives us some time. I've just formed a new executive leadership team, and that really gives us the time during 2026 to do some strategic planning and really think about, you know, what comes after 2026 in terms of the areas where we really wanna focus and where we want those growth drivers to be. All right. Great. We're gonna have a new, like, three-year acronym, FFG, CGI. We had something else come in in 2027 to 2029. We'll talk about that later, Raul. I joke. But, you know, it's, I'd say philosophically, it sure seems like it's kind of running the same playbook. You know, you picked up a business that, as you said, was running really well, has been for the last five years. It's one of the things that I've loved about covering Merit is that it's just such a consistent story. But you're coming in and saying, "We're gonna do exactly the same thing." That's the strategy is keep doing that same play. Yeah. I mean, we wanna keep building, right? I mean, now, having said that, I mean, I think people know what it takes to grow a company from startup phase to a billion and a half. It's a little different when you go a billion and a half, you know, to wherever we're going, not ready to say a number, right? But, you know, so I think more of what people will see is more sort of how we have to get the work don. I'm sure many in this crowd know our founder, Fred Lampropoulos, who's been running the company for, you know, 38 years, and so what we need to do now is figure out how we're gonna fill the, the Fred shoes, as I like to say. And so it really means a lot more cross-collaboration across all the functions in the company, across geographies in the company. But in terms of, you know, wanting to continue to grow organically and inorganically, that will remain the same. Okay. And you brought up Fred. I don't know if he's in the room or not, but I was gonna ask the question anyways. I mean, how involved is Fred still in, say, the day-to-day? I mean, he's still chairman of the board. You know, this is one of those situations where founder-led CEO of business for a very long time, sometimes hard to step away or fully step away. I know this is Merit was his baby. So, how have you, I guess, judged your interactions so far? And again, how involved still is Fred? Yeah. So Fred, as you said, is currently serving as our executive chair through the end of this year, and then starting in January, will become non-executive chairman. So he, he's no longer keeping an office at Merit, right? He's set up a separate office. At the same time, he's been terrific, from my standpoint, very available whenever I've wanted to consult with him on anything. And in particular, again, I think as many of you know, Fred has a great many relationships and a terrific network. And so he will continue. He's probably out at one of the other sessions right now, you know, sort of scouting technology, if you will, and keeping an eye on what is out there that could be a great addition to the Merit portfolio. So he'll continue to work with us primarily in that capacity as we move forward. And I'm very excited about that and grateful. Yeah. Excellent. Raul, I wanna bring you in. I do wanna talk about CGI a little bit. I know you don't wanna get into 2026 just yet, but you do have CGI out there that runs through 2026. And I think what you've, what you've been pretty clear about the last, you know, last few times we've talked, at least, is that, you know, you're still going to all, all the things that have transpired here, you still feel very comfortable in delivering on your CGI goals. But my question, and I know you're starting to respond, my, my question in that is the street's not really not there. Like, what's the street missing? Why isn't the street, you know, fully appreciating that, you know, you guys have delivered for five consecutive years, but they're effectively at the low end of your, of your, CGI guide? I mean, I like where they're at, you know? I mean, quite frankly. But look, I know, I mean, you know, obviously, I think maybe something that, you know, that they're keeping an eye on, it might be the tariffs, right? You know, people trying to get their arms around that. I think we've been very clear that, one, you know, the current impact on tariffs, you know, we think we can still hit our operating margin goals of 20%-22%. We've also been very clear as to what we think the impact is as of today, right? $13 million-$15 million for next year. Other than that, you know, I think there's a lot of momentum in the business. We're excited about where we're at in year two, heading into that third year. So, you know, I think it'll probably all shake out, I'm sure, here in the next couple months. But, we feel pretty good about where we're at and, you know, are very happy with how the company has done over the last couple years. All right. Yeah. Very fair. And then I'm biased, but I'll try not to bias you. And within your CGI plan, I guess, where do you feel most comfortable on hitting across those, the three main metrics? Well, you know, I mean, I think all three are, you know, are in sight. I mean, if you look at the 5%-7% CAGR on revenue, you know, we feel like we're obviously in the fight in that one, you know, and on our way to, you know, hitting that CAGR. The 20%-22% operating margin, as you mentioned, we're essentially, you know, our guidance pretty much puts us at 20%, you know, operating margin for the end of this year. So feel good about that one. And then free cash flow, we're also off to a really good start, you know, a minimum of $400 million there. We have that target in sight too. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. Looking ahead to next month, I think if history repeats, you probably will pre-announce in January. Is that still the plan, or is that a plan for you? And then are you expecting to release guidance at that time, or would that be more of a February 4Q call event? Yeah. We're gonna keep consistent to what we normally do. So we'll release a preliminary revenue at J.P. Morgan to give everybody a feel for, you know, how the revenue line landed. And then we'll give guidance for 2026 on our fourth quarter call. Okay. All right. Then maybe dovetailing off that question as a, you know, segue here into the topic du jour, topic of the last, like, year, I guess, on Wrapsody. You know, so first, is it your intention? You said I think when last time we talked, it's your intention to guide to Wrapsody revenue. Are you gonna guide to anything besides Wrapsody revenue, like, I guess, margin contribution or earnings contribution so that we can, you know, piece out core plus the add-on? No. So it's a great question, right? So one of the things we did promise when we announced CGI is that when we launched or got approval for US Wrapsody, we would give people kind of color as to, you know, what that was. 'Cause CGI does not include the sales of the US launch, you know, 'cause we weren't sure when that was gonna get approved. As far as guiding for other metrics, you know, we'll give you revenue for sure. I think we've been pretty clear about that for 2026, and other than that, we won't guide on anything else. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Getting into more Wrapsody dynamics, we guess we can't avoid them here. We're a few weeks now, I think, into the full commercial launch. Can you say how it's going? I mean, I'm sure you'll say, "Jason, it's way too early to say." But, you know, give me a sense. Again, it's not like you launched yesterday. Yeah. I mean, I would say it's going well. Okay. So far, as you said. I mean, it's still early days, but so far, we feel pretty good about it, right? I mean, we sort of made our pivot in our strategy a number of weeks ago. We had announced very favorable 24-month data. We decided that it was just really best to kind of, I'll say, take the noise out of the system. We had, we were learning, having physicians who were sort of holding back and waiting to see what was gonna happen on the reimbursement side. We knew it would be a long, sort of long haul into all next year, having to maintain a really, really pretty significant price. So we decided to adjust our pricing corridors, and sort of let the field go at it, if you will, and really work so that each physician could put Wrapsody in whatever site of service they'd like. So I think overall, we feel good about the decision. The team is fired up in the United States. They're getting at it, I would say, you know, still pursuing the hospital location as well as the outpatient locations. Early uptake, we're pleased. Okay. Double-clicking on a couple of those points. The pricing item, I know that you're not gonna disclose what price you're using. I'm sure it also varies a little bit account by account. But just strategic wise on, on the pricing front, is this more of a, "We wanna capture as much share as we can, so we're gonna actually price a little more aggressive because we have better clinical data, so we're gonna go get a bunch of business," or, you know, "We're gonna price at a modest premium because we have that better clinical data, and we still think we're gonna get good business"? As you can imagine, we're not gonna talk about, you know, pricing, just given kind of the competitive nature of what we're trying to do, but you know, we are obviously gonna expand the pricing bands. We're gonna give our sales force, you know, certain parameters that obviously they have to play within, but those have been expanded, and you know, the goal is to go out there and compete, you know, on the best product. Okay. And Martha, some of the other things you were mentioning there on, like, physicians holding back and, you know, there is a process that has to play out here and, like, actually, you know, getting into some of these accounts. I mean, what have you seen, again, the first few weeks on, you know, our accounts having to work through inventory of other competitive products or you having to go through any VAC committees? You know, what is, what does that process look like? How long is that taking before you can actually start really selling? Yeah. I mean, again, you know, there's a VAC process, right? If somebody's in the hospital, I will say, though, that, you know, in many cases, those were already underway. Okay. You know, prior to the last couple weeks. So and remember, for the in-hospital, you know, we had our NTAP approval October 1st. So even before that, we had people working on that process in the hospital. So, you know, do others have some inventory? Yeah. Some may have some inventory they're gonna change out. In other cases, we've certainly seen, though, where, you know, a couple of the doctors in one particular practice will do a couple Wrapsodies. And then, you know, we're hearing anecdotally they're running to some of their other colleagues and saying, "We've had really good results. Easy to place. Kink-resistant. Great thrombus resistance." And so then some other folks in that practice are picking it up as well. Okay. All right. That's helpful. Yeah. Any other switching costs that we should be mindful of for doctors, just given that this is an established market? I mean, I know we touched on a couple of them, but anything else that you'd call out? Not that I can think of, no. Okay. All right. Fair enough. On the pipeline, it's something I usually ask. Raul, you and I talked about it, I think, a few months ago. You know, you and Fred had always referenced, "Hey, there is a pipeline coming that's building on the Wrapsody technology." It sounds like something might be coming near term, or we'll learn more near term. I should probably, you know, reframe that. So, is that true? And, like, what does the timeline look like and when everyone on the external of Merit might learn more about that Wrapsody pipeline? Yeah. I mean, look, I, I think we've been pretty clear that Wrapsody is a platform, right? And there's technology, you know, behind it. Obviously, you know, when you guys will learn is, is when we go into, you know, first in-person, you know, you know, studies. You know, at that point, there's clinical, you know, study underway, right, that, that gets disclosed, and, and that'll become public. So, you know, we'll start talking about that. But obviously, you know, from our standpoint, you know, we're very quick learners too. Wrapsody, you know, obviously, it's been a big, big story. And, you know, it's, it's we spend a lot of time kind of, you know, talking through that. I think we'll give you guys, obviously, some color, but obviously, we'll keep it close to the vest also. Okay. So but you're gonna need new clinical data. You will need to run trials for. Yeah. So this is an indication. It is a new indication. That's part, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Give me a little side eye there. New indication to me is saying that we're expanding the Wrapsody kind of, you know, indication. So, I mean, I would say it's, that's not. Okay. That's not the path. All right. Fair enough. And then, you know, any sense on, like, how such a trial might look like? I'm really digging here. Yeah. I know. I know. I know you really are. And I'm just, you know, as I just mentioned, I'm a very quick learner, you know, and so I, you know, I'm gonna keep as much of that as tight as possible until we're, you know, well on our way and have, you know, solid information that we feel that comfortable sharing. All right. So maybe one other one tied into Wrapsody a bit, but the halo effect, this is something that was talked about more earlier this year as we were all trying to, I think, getting really excited about the Wrapsody opportunity and, you know, what it might do, not just with Wrapsody, but also everything else within your renal portfolio. Anything we can talk about just yet on, like, whether that's having a positive effect re whether Wrapsody is having a positive effect on your renal portfolio? Yeah. I mean, I think our renal therapy portfolio, you're right. I think we're really proud of it. And I think we've seen, you know, some momentum in that. And if anything, it's a good way for our sales force to be in the lab or with the doctors talking about, you know, Wrapsody or anything within that portfolio. And I think, you know, one of the nice things about our portfolio that maybe isn't appreciated as much as it should be is just the connection to therapeutic devices, right? I mean, we have access. We have delivering. We have closure devices, which just by the nature of those products are essentially, you know, used in a lot of therapeutic procedures. I was at a procedure, and there's always opportunity, right? I think within that portfolio. I was at a procedure for Wrapsody last week, in my hometown, you know, in California. And, you know, one of the things that I saw was, we had, you know, introducer sheaths, in different sizes, you know, from four to eight French in size. And, the doctor asked for a 10 French or a 12 French introducer sheath. And sure enough, it was a competitive product, right? We 'cause we didn't have it on the, you know, available yet, but it's something we're working on. So again, that's an easy win for us because they, you know, doctors love our, our, you know, Prelude introducer sheath and the ease of use. And so that's kind of the Merit way, right, is finding those, you know, areas where we can deliver our product in an expanded kind of form, and have an easy win. So, sure enough, you know, I talked to our R&D, you know, John Hall, head of R&D, and he's like, "It's already in the works," right? So we've got a, you know, an introducer sheath that they'll be able to bring in a larger French size. And I think that's just kind of the Merit way is finding those opportunities. And, you know, as we look at other therapeutic devices, I think it always excites me, especially since we're not giving up on our legacy portfolio, right? If anything, we think there's a really good path for both of them to, you know, both portfolios to be very successful in, in not only the legacy, you know, platforms, but also kind of the therapeutic and the pull-through that you see naturally from it. Okay. All right. Pivot. Shift gears over to China. Also, I know it's a very topical point, item here for your business. It's been a challenging market, I think, for a lot of med tech players. I think from an outsider's perspective, Merit seems to at least have done all right, at least on a relative basis. Still a tough macro, but Merit's done pretty well, all things considered. How do you think the China market evolves from here? Your China business evolves from here? And then what are you also seeing in the way of local competition? My take? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I look, I think we're in the fight, right? I mean, I think it's a, I think one of the metrics that I kinda keep referencing to, you know, whenever you guys, you know, talk to me about China is volume growth. You know, that continues to be strong. And so it's, you know, as long as that, you know, we have that visibility and that volume continues to grow at, you know, at or near historical kind of levels, then I think that, you know, for in my eyes, you know, continues to be a great market for us to be in. Obviously, we're dealing with volume-based purchasing. It has decreased, you know, the sales as a percentage, you know, that we, you know, that we were at, you know. So we were at 13% at one point. We're down to 10%. But again, volume continues to be strong. And, you know, I do like to say that, you know, 2024 was worse than 2025, and 2025 will be worse than 2026 from a volume-based, you know, purchasing standpoint. So things are getting better from that standpoint, and hopefully, if, you know, if things stay as they are right now, you know, hopefully, we'll start to see, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel here, you know, as we exit 2026. Yeah. You were hitting on something there with 20, 25 versus 24 and 26 versus 25 that I was going to ask. So I'll maybe, you know, ask a follow-up on that. I mean, do you have visibility today with respect to, like, how VBP is shaking out for your affected product lines? Like, is that already pretty locked in, or are you just anticipating this based on your on-the-ground people in China telling you? Well, you know, we're as locked in as we can be for the, you know, for the market that we're talking about, right? This is the Chinese market. Things can change, you know, rapidly. I like to joke that, you know, ask me in an hour, and I might have a different answer for you. But, you know, look, I think we're confident that we kinda know what's coming down, you know, next year. And I think we've adjusted for it. And again, it looks better than it, you know, than this year. Okay. Does that mean China grows? You'll have to tune in for our fourth quarter call, you know. I have to try. All right. What do you think we don't give you enough credit for on your pipeline? I mean, look, I think, you know, well, I'll throw the one that kinda gets me, you know, all the time because I love it. You know, people like to refer to our portfolio as commodity-type products, right? And which is fine 'cause, you know, that commodity-type portfolio has been growing at, you know, high single digits for about 20 years. So, you know, don't let the cat out of the bag, and don't let anybody else know, right? We'll keep taking it. So, look, I think we have great products, right? I think we have a high-quality, you know, portfolio that does well against much larger competitors. And, you know, I'm really proud of the way it's been built. And I think, you know, as we kinda dig into our strategic kind of, you know, planning, you know, next year with Martha, I think, you know, there's good things to come out of it. And so, you know, just continue to be excited about the portfolio. I know it's hard to understand, you know, where the growth drivers are coming from, and it's a little bit of a kind of a trust me story, but, you know, hopefully, we can give you guys kind of better insights and color, you know, over time as to kinda where that growth is really coming from. Okay. I wanted to ask a quick one on, on your OEM business. The comps are a little tough the next couple quarters. Is a very short-term question. Sorry. But should we be concerned about those tough comps? No. I mean, I wouldn't be concerned, right? Look, I think we've been pretty clear the last couple years. You know, you had 15% growth, and you had 20% growth. And I was pretty adamant, "Please don't count on that," right? I think, you know, mid to high single digits is really where you wanna see OEM. It can be pretty choppy, as we know. And, you know, this year, it's growing just over 9%, you know, through Q3. So it's right where we want it to be. And it's performing really well in the U.S. Really, the only soft area that we see this year is really within China. So I think OEM's doing what we'd expect it to do and, you know, being consistent from that standpoint. Okay. All right. Great. I, I feel like your M&A strategy has been pretty, pretty clear, at least to me, with the, the assets that you've acquired over the last few years. You know, Martha, you had one here that was, you know, announced, you know, since you, you know, officially took over as CEO. How does this, how does the strategy evolve or does it evolve with you now running the show? Yeah. I mean, I think the way we're gonna look at it going forward. I mean, first, as you said, we've had a history of being inquisitive. I will continue to do that. As Raul referenced, I mean, we'll spend 2026 really thinking about our strategic plan beyond 2026. We're kind of probably converging on a couple of really key platforms, I would say. And then the goal would be to be a bit more intentional as we think about M&A. So we'll continue to look at the things that come, you know, inbound. At the same time, we're gonna have an emphasis on saying, you know, with this particular physician group that we currently serve, what else would really benefit them, right, to round out procedures and, you know, and outcomes for patients and then be perhaps a bit more proactive to go out and try to round it out that way. Do you feel like you have a preference for, for growth or something that's a great strategic fit or something that's a good financial fit? I, I think I'm just still waiting to see, and again, we have an end of one, and, yeah, that probably was even, like, percolating before you joined, so. Yes. So the end yes, it was. And, you know, what's gonna be important and we're, you know, we're already sort of working on some of our philosophies is to be both strategic and a financial fit. All right. Check both boxes. For sure. Okay. Well, with that, we are actually out of time. It's crazy how quick these sessions go, but thanks, everyone, for joining us and join me and thank you, Martha and Raul, for being here with us today. Thank you.