NASDAQ: BDMD
Tom Kerr, CFA: Hello everyone, my name is Tom Kerr. I'm a senior equity analyst at Zacks Small Cap Research, and welcome to another episode of our Fireside Chat program. Today we have the CEO of the U.S. Region for Baird Medical, Mark Saxton.
Baird Medical (NASDAQ: BDMD) is a leading provider of microwave ablation technology, providing solutions for treating thyroid nodules, breast disease, and other uses. The company is based in Guangzhou, China, but is currently making a strategic move into North American markets. Welcome, Mark.
Mark Saxton: Thank you, Tom. Pleasure to be here.
TK: Baird Medical is not a startup. It's an established medical device company that's been around for almost a decade. Maybe just quickly give the company history and background for people new to the story.
MS: The business actually started in China in 2012, but they entered the microwave ablation market in 2017 through the acquisition of another company that was already in that space. Through that, and their natural growth, they became a leading microwave provider in China, primarily for thyroid applications. In 2023, we received our clearance in the United States and have established Baird Medical as a wholly owned subsidiary here. After investigating the market for a little bit of time, they hired me in December of 2025 to sharpen our go-to-market strategy, put some strong structure around our commercial effort, and advance our organization in this market.
TK: Got it. Let's jump right to the technology a little bit. What is microwave ablation, or MWA technology, in layman's terms, and how does it differ from radio frequency ablation?
MS: As far as microwave and radio frequency, they're both needle-based, image-guided methods to destroy a thyroid nodule with heat instead of surgery. The difference is really the energy source and what that unlocks. MWA uses microwave energy, and radio frequency uses a current. Microwave has a few distinct advantages over radio frequency just because of that different method of action.
One of those is that it's not slowed by tissue charring that limits radio frequency's heating. There's something called a heat sink effect, when the RFA needle or antenna can actually cool down a little bit because of adjacent blood flow; that just does not happen with microwave. We have an advantage there. When we look at the other ways we have an advantage, it really comes down to speed and large nodules.
Microwave procedures run a little bit faster in terms of their ablation time than radio frequency because of that different method of action. That can translate into quite a bit of time saved for a patient in the chair, which is important for a couple of reasons. One, it allows a physician to have more operative throughput: more patients can be treated in a single operative day, which is clearly an advantage from a time and practice dynamics perspective. But for a patient, most importantly, if they are spending less time with a radio frequency or microwave needle in their neck, that's a lot more comfortable, a lot more tolerable. We have that real advantage there. And because microwave does not have a current path through the body, we don't use grounding pads, which can be uncomfortable for patients. What's more important is that this doesn't limit microwave to any kind of patient. Patients with pacemakers or ICDs, who can't undergo radiofrequency because it's contraindicated for them, can still be treated with microwave. At the end of the day, what you're looking at really is that we can treat larger nodules because of that speed, we can admit more patients into the practice, and we can positively change patient dynamics both for the practice and the patient.
TK: You've said in materials that it's almost like a win-win-win situation: good for the patient, good for the doctors, and the third one is the healthcare system. How does that benefit the overall healthcare system?
MS: As you mentioned, for the patient it's fantastic. It's an outpatient, needle-based procedure: there are no incisions, there's no anesthesia, there are no hospital visits. It's just easier, better for the patient from that perspective. For the physician, it really fits well within their image-guided skill set. It's the same skill set that RFA has already established, but with the added flexibility of treating patients who have pacemakers, ICDs, large nodules, and so on. It's really a benefit for the physician as well. But as you alluded to, it's really important for the healthcare system. When you're looking at these minimally invasive alternatives to surgery, you're reducing OR time, you're reducing general anesthesia, you're reducing downstream risk. That's extremely beneficial, and you're also reducing a lot of cost. It takes cost out of the system and makes it easier, more tolerable for patients. The whole system benefits here.
TK: Got it. Let's pivot to the U.S., which you touched on a little bit. As I said, this is not a startup business — the company might have approximately $30 million in revenues this year, from China and other international markets. It is established, but why the U.S. now, and what makes that so attractive?
MS: A lot of reasons, Tom. First, as we're aware, this is the biggest single healthcare market in the world. More importantly, thyroid ablation, unlike in China, is still in the early stages here. Radio frequency — we have to thank them for being the ones with machetes — has spent a few years building physician and patient familiarity with thyroid ablation as a category, and that's groundwork that we don't have to do. We can come into this market and tap into an audience that already believes in the procedure, but with something we believe to be more advantageous. We can be a much faster follower, and we believe that we will be able to gain category leadership within a fairly short period of time. The other thing here is I think there's a significant unmet need and a physician base that's actually waking up to it.
There are a couple of groups now that have formed in the last few years, most particularly NASIT, the North American Society for Interventional Thyroidology, and NASOIE, the North American Society of Interventional Endocrinology. These two groups were formed specifically to advance minimally invasive therapies in thyroid disease, and when you see physicians waking up to that possibility, it does drive a very significant pathway for a company like ours. We are active participants in both of those organizations.
A couple of other real benefits: the insurance picture is now standardizing. There was a CPT code for thyroid ablation that went into effect in 2025. That did align with radio frequency formally, but the Society of Interventional Radiology has issued a formal opinion recommending that microwave be pulled into that code, because these are two different parts of the same thermal spectrum, and this is consistent with other clinical markets. There's precedent for that, and we expect that clinical path to continue to clarify as we move forward. Lastly, I think there's really no dominant competitor in the market right now; it's got smaller organizations, small distributorships, but no company that's really focused on building the market out as we are. So, I think we have a lot of advantages to penetrate the U.S. market, and that's why it's so attractive to us.
TK: Maybe expand a little bit on the marketing or sales approach. Are you targeting doctors, hospital systems? How does that work, or is it all of the above?
MS: All of the above. With something like microwave, you're really looking at a therapy and treatment option that is really beneficial in the clinic setting or an office-based setting — it's really patients that want to avoid that surgery.
With microwave energy, we do not destroy the thyroid function; we just destroy the tumor. In surgery, patients have to undergo hormone replacement therapy often, and that's something they have to do for the remainder of their lives. If you can avoid that whole surgery aspect, you're putting the patient in a really beneficial place. When we think about our sales channel, that's part of our messaging. We're going to surgeons and saying there are a lot of patients here who are sitting on the sidelines because of all of these things they don't want with surgery.
You should be adding microwave technology into your practice and then moving that out into a clinic-type setting, where the patient input dynamics — all the things that make a patient want to come in for something minimally invasive — are all there. We are approaching all of these different avenues, and we already have a good number of strong KOLs in the marketplace who have adopted microwave into their practices, and we're using them as our springboard.
TK: A lot of people ask me about the addressable market. Can you put numbers on that? Is it the ones that want to avoid surgery? Is it the RFA people? Are we talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or a million people who may use MWA thyroid treatment?
MS: Let's look at the claims data to answer that question. If I look at 2025, there are approximately 3 million patients who were diagnosed with a benign thyroid nodule or thyroid neoplasm. Against that, there are only 174,000 thyroidectomies and only roughly 4,000 ablation procedures.
When we think about roughly 178,000 procedures versus 3 million patients diagnosed, up to 94% of those diagnosed patients just are not undergoing any kind of treatment whatsoever — they're undergoing what's called watchful waiting or active surveillance. That's really the gap. It's not the lack of disease; it's not that the nodules haven't progressed enough to force surgery, or more so that the patients are hesitant given what surgery entails — especially that lifetime hormone replacement. I believe a meaningful share of those would choose microwave if they knew it existed. We are talking potentially a few million patients as an upside of the market, and we have barely scratched the surface on that.
TK: It's a big number any way you calculate it, or a potential big number.
MS: Absolutely.
TK: We'll talk about big numbers now: This has traditionally been for thyroid treatment, as you said, but this can be used on pretty much any soft tissue ablation.
MS: When I think about this, for all the reasons I just mentioned — the high nodule prevalence, the existing ablation category that's already starting to be defined — I think there is a real reason for us to use thyroid as our beachhead. That's really why we're focused on that part of the market. But the platform does extend beyond thyroid. You have things like breast disease, uterine fibroids, liver cancer. These are all part of the broader indication set that microwave technology can address. But in the U.S., frankly, our focus is thyroid, and that's where we see the significant opportunity to expand awareness in the marketplace.
TK: Talk about the product itself for a second. What are you selling or providing? Is it just the box? Is it needles? Explain what the products are and how that benefits you in terms of revenue generation.
MS: This system is really fairly simple. It's a microwave generator — that's a capital equipment piece, usually a one-time purchase for any particular site. You use a disposable thyroid needle, and that needle is one patient per use, so that's a recurring revenue model right there that is highly attractive.
TK: Okay, so you can't reuse this needle product on different patients; that's sort of the key.
MS: You can't use that on different patients; it's not reusable in that manner. But what's great about it is you can use it multiple times on the same patient in the same setting. If the patient has two or three thyroid nodules that you want to address, you just need to use that one needle in that one sitting. But once you've used it that one time, it is disposable.
TK: Back to the sales and marketing in the U.S. and other regions as well. What are you seeing in the U.S.? Are doctors responsive? Are they excited that they want this? How would you describe that?
MS: I'll give some credit to radio frequency for a moment: it's an older technology, proven in many ways in different marketplaces. Microwave is just a newer ablation modality that has significant advantages. Even when we go to radio frequency users, they immediately see the opportunity to add more patients to their mix and to treat patients with larger thyroid nodules more easily, and it's an easy conversation to discuss adding this as either an adjacent technology to capture those patients, or as a replacement for radio frequency. As we start talking to surgeons or endocrinologists who haven't referred for surgery because of the concerns their patients have, the light bulb really goes off, because they see this as an opportunity to recapture patients who may have refused surgery through a consultation in the past, but who the doctor knows is eventually going to need to be treated. They ultimately get to do the right thing by the patient and add revenue and additional procedures to their practice. I think these conversations are going extremely well.
TK: Got it. Let's go back to the company as a whole. As I said, it's based in China, where the majority of revenues — or half the revenues — are. Are there plans for expansion on a global basis besides the U.S.? We know China's the focus, but there are a lot of other countries where this technology is being used. What else is the company doing on a global basis?
MS: I think what we're doing is building on the established microwave platform while expanding in the U.S., and over time we're looking at additional global markets. We're also looking at advancing the broader technology platform. We've talked about AI-powered surgical software for anatomical mapping, treatment planning, and procedural simulation in previous press releases. We're looking at how we appropriately align that technology with unmet markets, and also at an early exploration of AI-enabled robotics for ablation. We have a lot of things we're looking at that we can use to expand Baird's footprint in a meaningful way that's certainly advantageous for us, but even more so for the healthcare system and the physicians and patients within it.
TK: You have a good product pipeline out there that you're working on, and you just mentioned AI robotics. Any other exciting things that may be in development that we can look for in the future?
MS: Anything that we're doing is moving this platform forward, and I'll look forward to discussing those when we get a little bit closer to a time where we can give you more detail.
TK: Got it, that's a good overview. Any other comments or things we may have missed?
MS: Nothing more really to bring up that's new, Tom. When we think about Baird at this particular moment in time, I think we have an incredible technology that's already commercially proven in international markets, and we're bringing that to a very underpenetrated U.S. market segment that has real unmet patient need, and we have a really strong solution for it. Everything is aligned to have us move extremely quickly in this market and eventually make this market our own. I think it's a very good time to be in the thyroid ablation business, especially with microwave.
TK: It's a really good story and a lot of growth ahead, it looks like, and it's exciting for that technology and the company as well. Thanks for your time today. It's been a great chat.
To read all of our reports, investors can go to scr.zacks.com, as well as our social media channels. If you want to learn more about the company itself, you can go to their website at BairdMed.com. Thank you for your time.
MS: Thank you, Tom. I really appreciate the opportunity.
SUBSCRIBE TO ZACKS SMALL CAP RESEARCH to receive our articles and reports emailed directly to you. Please visit our website for additional information on Zacks SCR.
DISCLOSURE: Zacks Investment Awareness (ZIA) is a Zacks SCR product. The Zacks SCR analyst conducting this Chat hereby certifies that the views expressed accurately reflect the personal views of the analyst about the subject securities and issuer. Zacks SCR certifies that no part of any analyst’s compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the recommendations or views expressed in this Chat. Zacks SCR believes the information used for the creation of this Chat has been obtained from sources considered to be reliable, but we can neither guarantee nor represent the completeness or accuracy of the information herewith. Such information and the opinions expressed are subject to change without notice.
This text is not a verbatim transcript. This transcript has been edited and does not reflect the video-recording exactly. You may find the video recording in its entirety here. Full Disclaimer HERE.