Earnings call transcript: Artivion Q3 2025 earnings beat forecasts, stock rises

Artivion Inc. (NASDAQ:AORT) exceeded market expectations in its third-quarter earnings for 2025, reporting an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.16, significantly higher than the forecasted $0.03. The company also posted revenues of $113.4 million, surpassing the anticipated $110.44 million. Following the earnings announcement, Artivion's stock increased by 2.13%, closing at $46.51, nearing its 52-week high.

Key Takeaways

• Artivion's EPS of $0.16 surpassed expectations by over 433%.
• Revenue growth was driven by strong performance in North America and Asia-Pacific.
• The stock price rose by 2.13% post-earnings, reflecting investor confidence.
• The company is expanding its product pipeline with new clinical trials and launches.

Company Performance

Artivion demonstrated notable performance in Q3 2025, with a 16% year-over-year increase in total revenues. The company's adjusted EBITDA rose by 39%, reflecting improvements in operational efficiency. Regional revenue growth was led by North America and Asia-Pacific, with increases of 19% and 18%, respectively. This growth positions Artivion strongly within the competitive landscape of medical devices.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $113.4 million, up 16% year-over-year
• Earnings per share: $0.16, a significant beat over the $0.03 forecast
• Adjusted EBITDA: $24.6 million, a 39% increase
• Gross margins: 65.6%, up 200 basis points from the previous year

Earnings vs. Forecast

Artivion's Q3 2025 EPS of $0.16 exceeded the forecast of $0.03, resulting in a surprise of 433.33%. The company also outperformed revenue expectations with a 2.68% surprise, highlighting its ability to execute strategically and efficiently.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Artivion's stock saw a 2.13% increase, closing at $46.51. This movement reflects strong investor sentiment, as the stock approaches its 52-week high of $47.69. The positive reaction underscores confidence in Artivion's growth trajectory and strategic initiatives.

Outlook & Guidance

Artivion has set its full-year 2025 revenue guidance between $439 million and $445 million, with adjusted EBITDA expected to range from $88 million to $91 million. The company anticipates double-digit revenue growth in 2026, with adjusted EBITDA expanding at twice the rate of revenue growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Pat Mackin expressed optimism, stating, "We're excited to continue growing AMDS revenue as we further tap into what we estimate to be a $150 million annual US market opportunity." COO/CFO Lance Berry added, "We expect to continue to drive double-digit revenue growth, with adjusted EBITDA growing at twice the rate of constant currency revenue growth."

Risks and Challenges

• Cybersecurity incidents have incurred costs and may pose future risks.
• Increasing R&D expenses could impact profit margins if not managed effectively.
• Market saturation in key product areas may limit growth potential.
• Competition in the medical device sector remains a significant challenge.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the AMDS launch, noting its positive early adoption and clinical data. The potential acquisition of Endospan was also discussed, contingent on the results of the Nexus trial. Continued strong performance in ON-X heart valves was highlighted as a key growth driver.

Full transcript - Artivion Inc (AORT) Q3 2025:

Operator: Good afternoon and welcome to the Artivion Q3 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Lane Morgan, from the Gilmartin Group. Thank you. You may begin.

Lane Morgan, Investor Relations Representative, Gilmartin Group: Thanks, Operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining the call today. Joining me today from Artivion's management team are Pat Mackin, CEO, and Lance Berry, COO and CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to make the following statements that comply with the safe harbor requirements of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Comments made on this call that look forward in time involve risks and uncertainties and are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements include statements made as to the company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations, or predictions of the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, estimates, and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

Additional information concerning certain risks and uncertainties that may impact these forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in the company's SEC filings and in the press release that was issued earlier today. You can also find a brief presentation with details highlighted on today's call on the investor relations section of the Artivion website. Now I'll turn it over to Artivion's CEO, Pat Mackin.

Pat Mackin, CEO, Artivion: Thanks, Lane, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter of financial and operational results in which we delivered total constant currency revenue growth of 16% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 39% year over year. Further, we continue to make good progress in each of our key clinical and pipeline initiatives, which we believe will drive continued growth in the near term, medium term, and long term. Our Q3 performance was enabled by continued growth across our product portfolio, with Stent Graft and ON-X valves acting as significant growth engines. From a product category perspective, Stent Graft revenues grew 31% on a constant currency basis in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Continued sequential growth was again driven in large part by AMDS, as we benefited from growing early adoption and initial stocking orders.

We see our Stent Graft portfolio as a foundational component of our growth strategy, and we're encouraged by these strong results with AMDS. Looking ahead, we intend to replicate our proven strategy by bringing additional Stent Graft products that are already generating revenue in Europe to the US and Japan, unlocking a meaningful expansion of our total addressable market. Relative to the AMDS US launch, we're very pleased with the market enthusiasm since we received the HDE in late 2024. Feedback from early adopters remains exceptional, and we're seeing more and more customers moving through the three-step process, including IRB approval, VAC analysis, and company-required surgeon training prior to implementing an AMDS under the HDE. Our early success reflects both the dedication of our existing salesforce and the still-growing body of positive clinical data validating the unparalleled clinical benefits of AMDS.

With respect to new clinical data, we were very pleased to see two late-breaking science sessions highlighting the favorable data regarding our AMDS technology at the recent ESVS annual meeting in Copenhagen in October. Late-breaking data from our AMDS Persevere trial highlighted the positive benefits of AMDS beyond the region treated by the stent for the subset of patients with preoperative visceral and renal malperfusion. The results continue to demonstrate the benefit of patients with malperfusion even in subsets of malperfusion. Also at ESVS, late-breaking data from our AMDS PROTECT trial reported real-world outcomes from our European and Canadian multi-center registry, demonstrating excellent three to six-month results consistent with those from AMDS Persevere and the DART studies.

Notably, there were no occurrences of paralysis, paraparesis, aortic rupture, myocardial infarction, as well as over 95% of the patients showed positive remodeling with the true lumen diameter increasing or remaining stable in zone one to three. These data build upon our prior positive findings and further support the lifesaving nature of AMDS. Lastly, on AMDS, we're very pleased to see that CMS recently established a new MS-DRG, DRG-209, specifically for complex aortic procedures. This code was made effective on October 1, 2025, and reflects a meaningful increase to the reimbursement available to healthcare providers for these procedures. We believe this improved rate more accurately reflects the clinical necessity and complexity of these cases, as well as the hospital resources required to deliver lifesaving treatments such as AMDS.

We expect this will strengthen our economic value proposition even further, improve patient access, and act as an incremental tailwind for already adopting these trends. Overall, we're encouraged by the early commercial traction of AMDS, our expanding base of clinical evidence, and the reimbursement updates, and an even stronger value proposition for this lifesaving technology. We're excited to continue growing AMDS revenue as we further tap into what we estimate to be a $150 million annual US market opportunity, the vast majority of which is already unlocked through the HDE with limited competitive alternatives. Alongside AMDS, On-X continues to be another major growth factor in 2025. In Q3, we delivered exceptional results in our On-X business, with revenue growing 23% year over year on a constant currency basis.

Growth is driven by continued global market share gains supported by On-X's unique clinical profile as the only mechanical aortic heart valve that can be maintained at a low INR of 1.5-2.0. Based upon the proven clinical benefits of the On-X aortic valve, as well as the growing body of evidence supporting the use of mechanical valves in younger patients, we maintain our strong conviction that On-X is the best aortic valve on the market for patients under the age of 65 and will continue to take market share worldwide. In the U.S., we are benefiting from expanding awareness and adoption of our On-X valves, driven by positive new data as well as cross-selling opportunities from our AMDS launch. This dynamic, in particular, reinforces our conviction in our innovation-led, multi-pronged growth strategy and further strengthens our confidence in both our near and long-term outlooks for growth and profitability.

In line with that strategy, in anticipation of continued growth, we've taken meaningful steps in the third quarter to expand our On-X operational footprint. During the quarter, we entered into two real estate agreements to purchase two facilities in Austin, Texas. The first facility, where we currently lease and occupy, serves as the basis for our On-X manufacturing operation and includes about 75,000 sq ft of combined manufacturing, administrative, laboratory, warehouse, and office space. Meanwhile, the second adjacent facility allows us to expand our footprint in Austin as our capacity needs continue to rise in the coming years. We expect these facilities to provide long-term capacity for the On-X business. Ultimately, we remain confident in the growth trajectories of our Stent Graft and On-X businesses, where we continue to focus our investments on maximizing and sustaining our growth momentum.

Beyond these growth engines, we also are maintaining a strong position across our highly differentiated and highly defendable base businesses, tissue processing and BioGlue. In Q3, tissue processing revenue increased 5% year over year on a constant currency basis. As a reminder, a significant portion of our tissue revenue comes from our Stent Graft pulmonary valves, for which demand largely outstrips supply every quarter, and therefore we hold no inventory. At this point, we believe tissue processing volumes have normalized following the disruption caused earlier this year by the 2024 cybersecurity event. As a result, we expect full-year 2025 tissue revenue to be relatively flat compared to 2024, with mid-single-digit revenue growth expected for the full year of 2026 and beyond. Meanwhile, BioGlue grew 1% in Q3 on a constant currency basis compared to the same period last year.

As we've discussed previously, we expect to see some variability in the growth rate of BioGlue quarter over quarter, driven by the significant amount of stock and distributor business in this product line. On an annual basis, we expect BioGlue to grow in the mid-single-digit range. In summary, we're encouraged by our third-quarter commercial performance, driven by our unique portfolio of highly differentiated PMA-approved products. Looking ahead, we're advancing a robust pipeline of high-margin innovations that we expect will unlock approximately $1 billion of incremental market opportunity over the next five-plus years. Our nearest-term PMA opportunity is for AMDS. While the HDE enables us to sell AMDS in the U.S. before obtaining the PMA, we are focused on securing the PMA for AMDS. To date, we've already filed three of the four modules, keeping us on track for FDA approval in mid-2026. As for Nexus.

Endospan is expected to present its one-year data from its US IDE trial, Triumph, for the Nexus device at the upcoming STS annual meeting in late January. Assuming the data shows the trial endpoints have been met, Nexus remains on track for approval in the second half of 2026. In Q3, we took strategic steps to strengthen our balance sheet in anticipation for a potential Endospan acquisition by refinancing our existing credit agreement to extend its maturity to 2031. We also secured a more favorable interest rate and gained access to a new $150 million delayed draw term one facility. Lastly, on our pipeline, I'm pleased to announce we recently enrolled our first patient in our pivotal trial called Artisan. As a reminder, in July, we received investigational device exemption approval, IDE, for the FDA to begin our US pivotal trial, Arcevo LSA.

Which is our third-generation frozen elephant trunk used to replace the entire aortic arch. The trial will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Arcevo in the treatment of acute and chronic arch pathologies and will enroll 132 patients in up to 30 sites. We are optimistic that the trial will be successful, supported by the positive clinical results from our current-generation frozen elephant trunk, Avita Open Neo. In conclusion, we believe our accelerated top-line growth at 16% constant currency, the positive new late-breaking clinical data presented at EX for AMDS, the establishment of the approved DRG-209 for AMDS, all serve as clear validation of our strategy and the strength of our unique innovative product portfolio and pipeline.

We look forward to continuing to build on our momentum as we close out the year and remain confident in our ability to deliver sustained double-digit revenue growth while growing adjusted EBITDA at twice the rate of constant currency revenue growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lance. Thanks, Pat, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I begin, I'd like to remind you to please refer to our press release published earlier today for information regarding our non-GAAP results, including a reconciliation of these results to our GAAP results. Additionally, all percentage changes discussed will be on a year-over-year basis, and revenue growth rates will be in constant currency unless otherwise noted. Total revenues were $113.4 million for the third quarter of 2025, up approximately 16% compared to Q3 of 2024. Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 39% from $17.7 million to $24.6 million in the third quarter of 2025.

Adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.7% in the third quarter of 2025, an approximately 320 basis point improvement over the prior year, driven by improvements in gross margin and leverage in SG&A. From a product line perspective, Stent Graft revenues increased 31%, ON-X grew 23%, tissue processing revenues grew 5%, and BioGlue revenues grew 1% in the third quarter of 2025. On a regional basis, revenues in North America increased 19%. Asia-Pacific increased 18%. EMEA increased 12%, and Latin America increased 10%, all compared to the third quarter of 2024. Our as-reported expenses included approximately $700,000 in Q3 associated with the 2024 cybersecurity incident, which are excluded from adjusted EBITDA. While we have sought insurance reimbursement for some of the costs we've incurred since the incident, this process will take some time. We will exclude any insurance proceeds we receive from adjusted EBITDA as well.

Gross margins were 65.6% in Q3 compared to 63.7% in the third quarter of 2024. This reflects an approximate 200 basis point increase from 2024, due primarily to favorable mix from AMDS HDE revenues in the U.S. and the exceptional On-X growth, particularly in the U.S. General administrative and marketing expenses in the third quarter were $57.3 million compared to $50 million in the third quarter of 2024. Non-GAAP general administrative and marketing expenses were $53.6 million, or 47.3% of sales, in the third quarter compared to $46.6 million, or 48.6% of sales, in the third quarter of 2024, reflecting a 130 basis point improvement while funding our AMDS HDE launch costs. R&D expenses for the third quarter were $8.1 million, or 7.1% of sales, compared to $6.6 million, or 6.9% of sales, in the third quarter of 2024, reflecting consistent investment in our pipeline as a percentage of sales.

Interest expense net of interest income was $5.9 million as compared to $8 million in the prior year. Other income and expense this quarter included foreign currency translation losses of approximately $100,000. Free cash flow was $17.7 million in the third quarter of 2025. Free cash flow for the full year is anticipated to be impacted by a one-time cash payment of approximately $12 million during the fourth quarter and $8 million in Q1 2026 related to the opportunistic purchase of two facilities in Austin. To reiterate Pat's comments, we view these purchases as a prudent long-term investment in our operational infrastructure. Owning these assets allows us to avoid potential future rent escalations, reduce long-term occupancy costs, and ensure stability and long-term capacity for our On-X manufacturing operations.

With this opportunistic $12 million purchase, we now expect to be slightly cash flow negative for the full year 2025, but we anticipate being free cash flow positive in 2026, despite the expected $8 million Q1 payment. As of September 30, 2025, we had approximately $73.4 million in cash and $214.9 million in debt, net of $5.1 million of unamortized loan origination cost. At the end of the third quarter, our net leverage ratio was 1.8, down from 3.9 in the prior year. In regard to the recently amended credit facility, we are pleased to have extended the maturity date by one year to 2031 while also securing a more favorable interest rate.

In addition, the amendment provides us with optional access to a new $150 million delayed draw term loan facility, which enhances our financial flexibility and positions us well to pursue the potential acquisition of Endospan, assuming receipt of FDA approval for Nexus. As a result, we expect to realize an annualized reduction in interest expense of approximately $1.5 million. Now for our outlook for the remainder of 2025. We are raising the midpoint of our full year 2025 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance. We now expect constant currency revenue growth between 13% and 14% compared to the previous range of 12% to 14%. We expect reported revenues to be in the range of $439 million-$445 million compared to our previous range of $435 million-$443 million, reflecting greater confidence in our overall growth outlook.

This guidance range reflects our current estimate that currency will have a slight favorable impact to full year 2025 as compared to 2024. With our continued top-line revenue growth and general expense management, we now expect full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $88 million-$91 million, representing a 24%-28% growth over 2024 compared to the previous guidance of 21%-28%. Approximately 200 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion at the midpoint of our ranges. Lastly, I would like to discuss 2026. We will provide 2026 guidance in February during our Q4 earnings call, but I did want to provide you with some directional comments as you think about next year. In general, we expect the same dynamics to be in place for the business in 2026 as there are in 2025, with two exceptions.

First, we will be in year two of the AMDS launch, resulting in more difficult comps as we progress throughout the year. Second, on the expense side, we will have a full year of Arcevo trial costs. Ultimately, we still expect to continue to drive double-digit revenue growth, with adjusted EBITDA growing at twice the rate of constant currency revenue growth. With that, I will turn the call back to Pat for his closing comments. Thanks, Lance. To close things up, we're very pleased with our third-quarter results, which reflect strong execution, sustained momentum across our core product lines, and meaningful progress of our pipeline. We continue to deliver significant top-line growth, expanding adjusted EBITDA at twice the rate while strengthening our balance sheet and investing in long-term growth.

As we enter the final quarter of the year, we remain confident in our ability to drive continued performance by leveraging our differentiated portfolio, global infrastructure, and targeted commercial strategy. More specifically, we expect future growth to be driven by the following growth drivers. Number one, the AMDS HDE. We're commercializing AMDS in the U.S., starting to penetrate the $150 million annual U.S. market opportunity, with new clinical data and reimbursement dynamics likely to act as a further tailwind to growth. Number two, On-X heart valve data. We're educating healthcare providers on the JAC clinical data showing mortality benefit in patients under 60 compared to bioprosthetic valves. This is a new $100 million annual market opportunity that we are pursuing with the only mechanical aortic valve that can be maintained at a low INR of 1.5-2.0. Number three, the Nexus PMA.

Endospan is expected to present one-year clinical data from the late clinical trial in late January 2026, which would, assuming we exercise our option to acquire Endospan, bring us one step closer to being able to access the annual US market opportunity of $150 million. Fourth, the Arcevo LSA IDE trial. The first patient was recently treated with our third-generation frozen elephant trunk device, Arcevo, as part of our US IDE trial. Finally, I want to thank all of our employees around the globe for their continued dedication to our mission of being a leading partner to surgeons focused on aortic disease. With that, Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad.

A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from John McCauley with Stifel. Please proceed with your question. Hi, Pat. Hi, Lance. I wanted to start off with the comments you made about 2026. Just want to make sure I'm fully understanding. From an Arcevo perspective, just any kind of general sense of what this trial is going to cost on an annualized basis. And two, as you mentioned, AMDS. Tougher comps, understandable. On the other hand, the dollar contribution should be much stronger.

It seems like sort of small contribution at the beginning of this year, ramping through the end of this year. Just want to get a better sense of what you mean exactly by tougher comps in that sense. Does it imply slower growth? Sort of two parts, Arcevo and AMDS would be helpful to start. Sure. On Arcevo, we've said repeatedly we think we can fund our pipeline investing in R&D at a rate of 7%-8% of sales on an annual basis. This year, realistically, we're going to come in toward the very low end of that range, but we're only going to have a few months of a clinical trial that is ongoing this year. Next year, obviously, we'll have a full year, and it's possible that could push that toward the higher end of the range. That would be.

Something to keep in mind. And then on AMDS, I mean, just from a growth rate perspective, it's smaller numbers this year, but it's as compared to a prior year of zero. So that obviously helps the growth rate quite a bit. And just recognizing, as we move throughout the year, we're going to have actual numbers in the prior year when we think about what the actual contribution is to the growth rate. And just making sure that everyone keeps that in mind. Okay. Understood. And a follow-up on ON-X, another quarter sort of growth at 20+% rate. Just want to get a sense from what you're hearing either from your reps or from direct conversations with doctors. It seems like we're in a mechanical valve sort of renaissance. We've done a few calls on it ourselves here.

Just want to get a sense of what's driving the growth. Do you think it's share gain from competition? Is it some of the data you've cited? What's going on there? I think it's both. I mean, we've shown over the last eight years we've taken market share every year because we're the only product that has an aortic valve with a low INR indication from the FDA. That was kind of already in the works, and we were continuing to kind of we've been growing that business double digits for a long time. I think the new information, I think there's two other pieces. There's been some new clinical data. We've talked about it. We've talked about it previously. A paper came out in January that was presented at STS, published in JAC, that showed a mortality benefit in mechanical valve patients in favor over.

Bioprosthetic valve patients in patients under 60. There was another paper that just came out last week in 140,000 patients. Showing a huge difference between, and this is in patients under 65. The difference at 10 years from a mortality or a reoperation. The combined for. At 10 years for mechanical valves, like 87% of patients didn't die or have a reop, and only 69% of the bioprosthetic valve patients didn't die or have a reop. It's like a 20-point real difference. I think there's a real sea change in the feeling towards. Mechanical valves in these younger patients. We haven't even, as mentioned on the last call, we've been focused on the AMDS launch in the U.S., and we haven't even really started our kind of marketing program to cardiologists.

We know that they're very excited about the clinical data that we have with On-X as well as the data that's coming out in these big series. Because it's better for patients. I think we've got a very exciting growth opportunity here with On-X. Thanks. That's helpful. Our next question comes from Frank Dickinon with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on the quarter. I was hoping I could start with some more commentary around the new DRG that was in place. Maybe speak to what it was previously. Was there an economic challenge with it previously? Where is it now? And does it solve that challenge?

As an extension to that, I appreciate you just launched the product, but is there a pathway to get some ASP expansion out of the product over time under the new DRG? Yeah. Let me start high level. I mean, when CMS looks at these changes in reimbursement, basically, what they've done here is it reflects, when they look at a procedure, the high cost and complexity of an advanced aortic arch procedure. They recognize this is a very complex area. There's a lot of cost, a lot of work that's done in the replacement and repair of an aortic arch. As it relates to AMDS, this wasn't a big challenge from the economics equation. However, we've been going through value analysis committees. Certainly, that will be more of a tailwind going forward if they'll be less constrained by cost.

I think the final point is, I think this new DRG reflects the value of our portfolio of products across the complex aortic arch. This new DRG 209 kind of covers that whole arch segment. I think it validates kind of our strategy in that complex area. Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for that. Maybe just talking a little bit more about Nexus. I heard the comment that you're on track with the second half 2026 approval. Is the expectation still, maybe talk through thought process around exercising that option versus not? Anything that you're still waiting to see, or is it pretty much at this point, if you feel like the approval goes through as intended, it's exercise the option and carry it forward? Yeah. I'm not going to tell you what we're going to do. I mean, this is an option.

Clearly, we've set everything up. I mean, I think all the pieces are set up. The next piece of information is going to be the one-year data presented at STS at the end of January. They're currently under review with the FDA on their PMA. We've been telling people for the last probably two years that we think it's going to be second half of 2026. When they get FDA approval, we will make the analysis at that time, whether we buy them or not. We also, as you heard in our debt facility, we now have a $150 million delayed term loan, so we can acquire them. We've got the money to acquire them. I don't know, Lance, if you would add anything. No, I mean, I think.

We're optimistic about their process, but things aren't approved till they're approved, and labels aren't labels till they're labels, and we'll have to evaluate it at that point in time. Yeah. I will say, from a clinical standpoint, I've had a chance personally to talk to a number of the investigators and cardiac surgeons, vascular surgeons. There is a lot of excitement about the Nexus technology. This is a platform. It's not just one product. There's multiple products behind it. So we're very excited by it, but we're not going to tell you what we're going to do. It's just not appropriate. Yep. Got it. That makes sense. Appreciate the color. Congrats again on the quarter. Our next question comes from John Young with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question. Good time, Lance. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on a great quarter.

I wanted to just go back to AMDS. Is there any way to think about the strong results you saw in the quarter? In terms of the aortic stent graft business, in terms of sell-through versus sell-in for the product? Yeah. I mean, I would say just in general, you have to get the product on the shelf before you can get it used in a surgery. Right now, the majority of the revenue really continues to be heavily weighted towards that initial stocking. As you can imagine, we're every month seeing the number of implantations increase. Obviously, that's a super important part of the future, is getting that adoption rate up. Right now, honestly, the revenue is still heavily weighted towards the initial stocking, with positive, exciting ramp to the implantations as well.

I would say also, more importantly, the feedback from these early adopters on the surgeries has been excellent. I appreciate that, Lance. Is there any way to quantify just what ending you are in terms of that $600 or initial target you guys gave for AMDS in terms of the stocking? It's pretty early. Got it. If I could squeeze this one more in, BioGlue China, should we expect any stocking in Q4 from that launch? As you can imagine, China is challenging under any normal circumstances, and the world's gotten weirder in that regard over the past year. We have kind of just told people to think about that as an incremental opportunity that's going to help us get to our mid-single-digit annual growth rate targets and to not really think about that as an incremental uptake. I would.

Advise you to continue to think about it that way. Okay. Appreciate it, Colin. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sraj Kalia with Oppenheimer & Co. Please proceed with your question. Hi, Pat, Lance. Congrats on a nice quarter. Hey, Pat. Thanks, Sraj. Lance, many calls going on, so if you do not mind, I'll just pose both of my questions upfront. Pat, for you, a two-part question, and forgive me if you've already highlighted this, just how should we size the Arcevo market? And Pat, what are you hearing about the Partner 3 seven-year, especially the Saver Arm performance? Any color there would be great. Lance, to you. AMDS, obviously, the stent graft business is strong. I'm just curious how we should think about AMDS performance. I think you had said earlier 100-plus sites. Just size up AMDS for us in the quarter because we had roughly around.

$5 million-$10 million contribution for the years. Help us guide where AMDS should land up. Gentlemen, thank you for taking my questions. Yeah. Thanks, Raj. I'll take the Arcevo one first. Our sense of the frozen elephant trunk market in the U.S. is about $80 million. That's just the U.S. segment, which Arcevo would be our first product in that segment when that hopefully gets approved. That's the first question. The second is the seven-year data from Partner 3 that was presented at TCT. I think there's a bunch there. I'm not going to get into the nuances of the specific trial, but I think I have some big picture comments about the results and how to put them in context vis-à-vis what matters to Artivion. The first thing, which you know well, is the average age of that trial was 73 years old.

The lines for Saver and Taver are already bumping up against each other. People were worried they were going to cross. You're right there already at seven years. Our focus on patients is under the age of 65 with our product portfolio, both with On-X and our stent graft pulmonary valve. If you look at the life expectancy for a 65-year-old in the U.S., it's like 20 years. If you're struggling to kind of cross the lines at seven, why on earth would you be getting this technology if you're under 65 years old? I think that's really the important takeaway message. Even more importantly, these two papers that have come out recently, and I know you're very familiar with the JAC paper from January, there's another one that came out that's published in Annals in 140,000 patients I just mentioned earlier.

There's now two huge papers that, whether it's under 65 or under 60, it's showing that the mortality in reoperates from a tissue valve and mechanical valve in patients under 65 is significantly different in the benefit of mechanical valves. It's not even when you start talking about TAVR at a 73-year-old, when we already know that under 65-year-olds just don't do well with tissue valves. I think that's kind of how I position that trial relative to our patient population and our technology. Lance? Yeah. On AMDS, we've said previously we're not going to break out US AMDS performance specifically, but a couple of things. Obviously, we had a very nice acceleration in the stent graft growth rates this quarter. Safe to assume that AMDS was a huge factor. AMDS in the US was a huge factor in that acceleration.

Also, at the beginning of the year, we were pretty clear that the swing factor in whether we come in toward the higher end or the lower end of our original guidance range was likely to be the AMDS US launch and how well we did with that early on. I'd say we've consistently narrowed our range to the high end each quarter. I think it's also safe to assume that, therefore, AMDS is trending towards the high end of our original expectations of what we could do in year one. I think lots of positive things to point to without actually giving you a number. I think you should assume that it's going well. Our next question comes from Mike Matson with Needham Co. Please proceed with your question. Hi, guys. It's Joseph von from Mike.

Just a quick one on AMDS and then maybe gross margin question. Can you just remind us? I don't know if you've actually given a timeline, but the expectations for AMDS internationally, I guess in China and in Japan. I guess it is available in Europe and Canada, I believe. Just targets there for the Asian markets. We haven't really spoken about China. We have spoken about Japan in the past and just in general, bringing our products to the Japan market post the US market. Usually, there is a little bit, a year or so, timeframe post receiving your PMA approval to get into the Japanese market, and then you also need to work on reimbursement. Step one is for us to get our US PMA, and we're obviously working.

Thinking ahead on that Japan PMA, but that's kind of the first step there. We would move towards trying to get approval in Japan and then trying to get reimbursement in Japan. Okay. Yeah, that's clear. I guess, Lance, just given what you discussed on, I guess, AMDS comp being a headwind, more or less a headwind in 2026, I'm just wondering if you could frame for us what growth would look like in 2026. Is it mid-teens, high teens, low teens? I guess, is it anywhere in that range depending on how the launch goes? Real quick, just wanted to get a little bit more color on gross margin. Obviously, great improvement year over year. Even looking sequentially, third quarter versus second quarter, pretty similar quarters, even with the revenue splits, but there was substantial gross margin improvement. Is that just.

More AMDS and less BioGlue? Yeah, any color there would be helpful. Yeah. It's very likely the gross margin first and then talk about 2016. My numbers here is about a 50 basis point improvement sequentially from Q2 to Q3, which was in a similar from Q1 to Q2. That's really largely driven by mixed AMDS, but also with ON-X in the US growing faster as well. Those are two of the highest gross margin products. Honestly, BioGlue is a fantastic gross margin product. In general, less BioGlue is not a good thing from a gross margin standpoint. With the strength of AMDS and ON-X in the US, that's what's really driving that continued mixed benefit, which is what we've talked about. That's an expectation as we go forward and we bring these products to the US market.

They should have substantially higher gross margins than our current corporate average. It should allow us to continue to drive mix and gross margin for a while. As it relates to 2026, we're not going to get into specifics right now. We'll give hard guidance in February, but just wanted to give you a little bit of color. I think mainly I would focus on my first comment, which is we expect dynamics that are in place now to be similar dynamics that are in place in 2026. I just want to make sure that people aren't thinking about this as an ever-accelerating growth rate. We've had really good top-line growth the last two quarters.

I think if you kind of think about the way we think about annual growth for this year, I'm signaling annual growth for the full year this year is what I'm telling you is how you should be thinking about 2026 as well at this point. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you very much for taking our questions and congrats on a very strong quarter. Thanks. Our next question comes from Daniel Stutter with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question. Yeah, great. Thanks for the questions. This is the first one for me on ON-X. Great to see the growth here. I wanted to ask on the cross-selling benefits. I think you noted last quarter that there was a large uptick in new accounts. Could you give us any color on these new users?

I know it's early days, but are you seeing any notable utilization trends from these new surgeons? Are they converting their usage to On-X after initially using it? Just trying to get an idea of some of the stickiness with On-X and some of these new ads. Thanks. Yeah. I mean, I would just point to the growth rate. We had pretty similar growth rate, Q3 versus Q2. Which I think is a very positive sign. We're very early on in this. With the new data, but early signs are really positive. I think maintaining that growth rate for two quarters is a good sign. Yeah. Definitely. Great. Yeah. Just one quick follow-up. I know you also on On-X, I know you had said in the past that the first-half growth really came without much marketing on your end.

I'm not sure if you touched on this, but is that still the case? Have you put more capital towards marketing the two data sets? If not, when might that start and how much more of a tailwind could that be? Thanks. Yeah. I mean, we're still getting spooled up on that. Now, obviously, we're in front of a lot of surgeons right now because of AMDS. When we get in front of them, we make sure they're aware of the data in that regard. When we talk about marketing the data, we also need to get that information out to cardiologists, not just cardiac surgeons. That is a little bit longer lead time initiative. I would say that really hasn't started at all. That's going to be probably more of a 2026 type activity. Okay. Great. Thanks. Yeah.

The cardiologist piece, I guess, is what I was referring to. So appreciate it. Thanks for the questions. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks. Our next question comes from Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed with your question. Hi, Pat and Lance. Thanks for taking our questions. So I wondered if you could dive into the Arcevo trial a little bit and give us a sense of what type of pace on recruitment you expect and a little compare and contrast versus the current Vita Open Neo and perhaps a sense of number of SKUs that you would expect as well. Yeah. So this is a, the Neo device is currently available in Europe and a bunch of international markets. We've had a product through our acquisition in that space for 20 years. And this is the Arcevo's third-generation device.

The really unique kind of differentiating factor, which has been patented and we have a license on, is a subclavian branch, which, again, gets technical, but it just makes the procedure easier and faster, which is really helpful in these really sick patients. This is a 130-patient trial in 30 centers. It's roughly the same. It's kind of an equivalent trial to what we did with Persevere with AMDS. A lot of the same centers, roughly the same numbers. We're not going to get into the SKU details and stuff like that, but we've already started enrolling. We put a press release out this morning, and we expect to have sites kind of rolling on board and being rolling over the next, I'd say, 12-18 months. Okay. Got it.

Then a quick follow-up, if you could, besides pulmonary grafts, anything to call out specifically in the tissue business from the quarter? Strengths, weaknesses, or the areas of no? Thank you. Yeah. The tissue business is back to kind of normalized growth at 5%. We did note that we now expect the full year to be closer to flat than mid-single digits. We have, at this point, pretty much caught up all of the backlog that we had on releasing our very high-demand tissue from the cyber event from last year. That is all done. Honestly, we are not going to quite see the 100% catch-up that we thought we did. We are going to be close, but we are not going to quite get back to mid-single digits for the full year.

But with the normalized run rate and what we're seeing on the donation side, we expect to get back to that kind of mid-single digit growth next year. So that's kind of where we are on the tissue business. Okay. Got it. Thanks for taking our questions. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks. Mr. Mackin, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments. Yeah. Thanks for joining the call. We're super excited about the results. 16% top line and 39% bottom line. While reducing our leverage and with a great cash flow. I think it just kind of shows the business model in action. We've got a couple of great growth drivers with On-X.

We've talked a lot about it on this call with the low INR, the new data, the cross-selling with the AMDS trainings. AMDS with a new reimbursement code, DRG-209, and our new clinical data we just presented to EACS. We're going to be driving the growth in those segments. I think the last point I would make is really our business model is about bringing aortic innovations to the market. It's basically setting up that every two years, you've got a new aortic technology come into the U.S., and that will take other places. AMDS, obviously, we launched in 2025. Hopefully, with Nexus getting approval and our acquisition of them, we launched that fully in 2027-2028. We're kind of finishing up that launch. We'll be launching Arcevo. Just PMA after PMA after PMA. We've got a bunch more behind it.

This is a business model that's really just getting going. We appreciate everybody's support and look forward to the next call. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful afternoon.

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