William Blair initiated coverage on Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) on Friday with a Market Perform rating.
Over the past two years, Alcon has been aggressive in driving top-line growth both internally (increased R&D spend) and externally (several announced tuck-in acquisitions).
In 2025, after much drama, Alcon terminated the merger agreement with STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA) as it did not receive the necessary shareholder approval.
Analyst Steven Lichtman wrote that the premium is warranted given the company's full pipeline, but with the stock already trading at a roughly 25% premium (slightly above historical) based on a 2026 P/E multiple, the analyst looks for potential upside drivers to estimates, including mix upgrade potential in consumables and performance of Alcon's dry eye disease drug, Tryptyr.
Alcon's equipment segment was about 10% of the company’s sales. The biggest opportunity for Alcon in equipment is the launch of its UNITY platform for cataract and vitreoretinal procedures: UNITY VCS (launched 2025) and UNITY CS (launching 2026) surgical platforms.
Alcon has about 30,000 legacy systems in the field; the majority are over 7 to 8 years old, approaching the typical replacement age of 10 years.
Following a low-single-digit decline in equipment in the first half of 2025 as customers awaited the UNITY launches, growth accelerated meaningfully in the third quarter to 13% as pent-up demand began to be met.
William Blair expects further year-over-year growth acceleration in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first half of 2026, targeting mid- to high teens on rollouts and with easy comparables over the next couple of quarters.
Analyst also adds that Alcon could see higher consumables usage and improved pricing across both systems and consumables as clinics gain more procedure capacity and lower total equipment costs with VCS.
Consumables, which account for nearly 30% of sales, are expected to accelerate to about 7% constant-currency growth in 2026, up from 5% in 2025, driven by pull-through from premium-priced UNITY consumables.
Price Action: ALC stock is down 0.01% at $81.14 at the last check on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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