(Bloomberg) — The cyberattack against Stryker Corp. has delayed surgeries for some patients, the company said Wednesday, adding to the fallout from the incident last week.
The medical technology company said its products are safe and its systems are being restored, but disruptions to ordering, manufacturing and shipping have held up procedures for patients waiting on custom implants.
“The system disruption has temporarily impacted the ability to deliver personalized inventory,” a Stryker spokesperson said in an email. “As a result, some patient-specific cases have been rescheduled.”
Stryker, which makes surgical robots, tools and implants, was the victim of a cyberattack disclosed last week that damaged company networks and interfered with shipping. A pro-Iranian digital activist group, Handala, has claimed responsibility.
In the US, some patients’ care has been upended by the disruption.
Five-year-old Emmie Forrest was supposed to get a custom-made Stryker implant this week at a Tennessee hospital to replace a part of her skull that’s full of holes and soft spots, but the surgery was rescheduled to next month because the implant was stuck in Germany, said her mother, Taylor Forrest. Emmie had suffered skull damage after she and her father fell 40 feet (12 meters) off a cliff while hiking in 2024, Forrest said. This is supposed to be her final surgery.
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Separately, CommonSpirit Health, one of the largest US hospital systems, said in a statement that “a small number of surgical cases have been rescheduled” due to the Stryker cyberattack. CommonSpirit declined to specify what types of procedures.
Stryker said that it believes the cybersecurity incident has been “contained” and that it has enough inventory for most of its products.
The full scope and financial impacts of the attack aren’t yet known, Stryker said in a regulatory filing March 12.
Stryker shares fell 0.8% at 10:45 a.m. in New York on Thursday. They had dropped 1.6% year to date through Wednesday’s close.
BTIG analyst Ryan Zimmerman said the cyberattacks could have a modest impact on Stryker’s first-quarter earnings, but that many elective procedures will be rescheduled, so the company will just get that revenue later. “Investors are generally able to look past” short-term disruptions, he said.
One patient, Adam Page, was already prepped for hip surgery at a Boston hospital this week when a head nurse told him they could no longer do the procedure since a Stryker representative could not deliver the required bone-graft kit.
Page, a 42-year-old veterinarian, had already been on medical leave for months for a separate hip treatment. Now, with this one delayed, he’s worried about needing to take even more time off work.
“At what point is my company going to say, ‘Hey, you’ve been out since September, we can’t really wait for you anymore,’” Page said.
“You don’t think like the war in Iran’s going to affect you on a day-to-day basis,” said Page. “Maybe some extra gas prices or things like that, but never your health care.”