5 Value and Growth Medtech Stories: DexCom, Inc. (DXCM), NuVasive, Inc. (NUVA), Insulet Corporation (PODD)

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He also likes NuVasive, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUVA), which, like Globus, preannounced strong Q4 2012 results. Plovanic likes the small to mid-level spine-oriented companies that he believes are best positioned to carve out market share in spite of a less-than-stellar overall outlook in spine. The company is expanding its sales force, and there is potential for bringing in displaced salespeople from the merger of Johnson & Johnson with Synthes. The company is also building outside the U.S., with Japan set to provide a new revenue source with the launch of is extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF) system, which enables access to the intervertebral lumbar disc space laterally, and not from the patient’s front or back. The bottom line for Plovanic is that NuVasive, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUVA) carries on as the “gold standard” in the lateral access and minimally invasive surgery market segments. But there are also new growth areas with its AttraX biologics and PCM cervical disc products, the latter of which just received FDA approval in Q4 2012. “You’re looking at a core growth rate in the mid-single digit range,” he says. “There is a lot of earnings leverage potential with NuVasive. It’s a value play because it’s a show-me story. It needs to show that it can string together two, three, four quarters, and the stock will perform pretty significantly if it does that.”

To read the entire interview with William Plovanic, visit www.thelifesciencesreport.com.

The article 5 Value and Growth Medtech Stories originally appeared on Fool.com.

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