The Cooper Companies, Inc. (COO) Business Profile

What it does

The Cooper Companies is a medical-device company founded in 1958 and headquartered in San Ramon. Albert G. White III is President and Chief Executive Officer. The company sells products in more than 130 countries through two businesses: CooperVision and CooperSurgical.

CooperVision makes contact lenses for people who need vision correction. Its lenses address ordinary near- and farsightedness as well as astigmatism, presbyopia and myopia. The range includes daily disposable, two-week and monthly lenses, with spherical, toric and multifocal designs. It also sells products for myopia management and specialty eyecare, including orthokeratology and scleral lenses.

CooperSurgical sells products and services used in fertility care and women’s health. Its customers use medical devices in gynecology, obstetrics, labor and delivery, and contraception. Its fertility offering supports in vitro fertilization, from consumables and laboratory equipment to donor eggs and sperm, cryopreservation and genomic services including genetic testing. It also stores cord blood and cord tissue, and sells Paragard, a copper intrauterine device in the United States.

The two businesses serve practitioners, clinics, hospitals, surgery centers and, for selected services, consumers directly. Cooper had a workforce of 15,000 in FY2025.

How it makes money

CooperVision earns revenue by selling lenses through practitioners, optical chains, distributors, retailers and mass merchandisers with eye-care services. Daily lenses are designed for one-day use, while frequent-replacement lenses are intended for two-week or monthly replacement. That replacement cycle creates recurring product demand as wearers replenish lenses. Biofinity is CooperVision’s largest revenue-generating product line. MyDay and clariti are daily silicone-hydrogel brands, while Avaira Vitality is a two-week brand. MiSight is a daily lens used for myopia management in eligible children.

CooperSurgical earns revenue from medical devices and services across office, surgical and fertility settings. Office and surgical sales include devices used by OB/GYNs, cryostorage services and contraception. Fertility sales include media, micro-tools, laboratory equipment, donor gamete services, cryostorage and genomic services. Revenue can therefore arise from disposable products used in procedures, capital equipment, and services used by clinics and families. Customer contracts can include rebates, sales incentives, volume discounts, contractual price allowances and product-return provisions, which reduce reported sales.

In fiscal 2025, consolidated gross margin was 66%; in Q3 2026, consolidated revenue was $1.066 billion. CooperVision reported $717 million of Q3 2026 revenue, while CooperSurgical reported $349 million. The company’s pricing and revenue realization are also affected by reimbursement and payor coverage for procedures that use CooperSurgical products.

Customers and how it sells

CooperVision sells through field sales representatives, distributors and eye-care practitioners, including optometrists, ophthalmologists, opticians and optical chains. It also sells to distributors and mass merchandisers that offer eye-care services. Key accounts include optical chains, global retailers, buying groups and mass merchandisers. CooperVision operates across the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

CooperSurgical distributes through OB/GYN and medical offices, hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and fertility clinics. Its key accounts include large group practices, integrated delivery networks, buying groups and fertility-clinic networks. Donor gametes, cryostorage and certain awareness campaigns also create direct-to-consumer channels. No customer accounted for 10% or more of consolidated net revenue in fiscal 2025 or fiscal 2024.

The company’s production, distribution and service footprint supports international sales. CooperVision has major manufacturing and distribution facilities in Belgium, Costa Rica, Hungary, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and the United States. CooperSurgical has major manufacturing, cryostorage and distribution facilities in Costa Rica, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. China was less than 2% of consolidated revenue in Q3 2026, while the company reengineered that business and assessed channels including e-commerce.

Suppliers and costs

The company uses chemicals, packaging materials, components, parts and other raw materials. These inputs are generally available from more than one supplier, but it relies on sole suppliers for certain materials and components used in silicone-hydrogel lenses, medical devices and IVF products. It uses contractual agreements and safety stocks to protect supply, although a supplier failure could still create inventory shortages or product-supply disruption.

Manufacturing is a material part of both segments, alongside research and development, selling, distribution, customer marketing, regulatory compliance and administration. The company employed approximately 500 people in research and development and had 15,000 employees in FY2025. Fiscal 2025 gross margin declined to 66% from 67% in fiscal 2024, principally due to inventory and long-lived-asset write-offs and workforce-optimization severance costs. In Q4 2026, the company expects commercial investment, foreign-exchange headwinds and lower tariff refunds to pressure gross and operating margins.

Competitive position

CooperVision competes worldwide in spherical, toric and multifocal contact lenses with Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., Alcon Inc. and Bausch + Lomb, as well as smaller companies. It also faces competition from eyeglasses and other forms of vision correction, including ophthalmic surgery. Competition turns on product differentiation, materials, lens parameters, price, manufacturing efficiency, service and reliability.

In fertility, CooperSurgical competes with Vitrolife Group, Nexpring, Fairfax Cryobank, Fairfax EggBank and fertility clinics that provide their own services. In medical devices, competing offerings come from Johnson & Johnson, Baxter International, Medtronic and Hologic. ViaCord, a division of Revvity, competes in U.S. stem-cell storage. Bayer and AbbVie make hormonal IUDs, while Organon offers long-acting reversible contraceptives. A non-hormonal IUD, Miudella, has received FDA approval and is expected to compete with Paragard when marketed.

Our reading: CooperVision’s breadth of lens materials, modalities and parameters is a medium-strength moat because it helps practitioners fit a range of patients, but the major lens makers offer competing categories and compete on price and service. [item1]

Our reading: CooperSurgical’s combined fertility, women’s-health, cryostorage and genomic offering is a medium-strength moat because it spans several points of care, while specialized fertility providers, clinics and larger device companies compete in individual categories. [item1]

Our reading: Patents, trademarks, technical know-how and regulatory approvals provide protection, but enforcement, product development and regulatory compliance remain ongoing requirements. [item1]

Growth opportunities

CooperVision is pursuing growth through wider penetration of daily silicone-hydrogel lenses, toric and multifocal products, myopia management and expansion in existing and emerging markets. The company considers myopia management a new contact-lens market and is investing in practitioner, patient and family education. It has approvals for MiSight use in China and Japan, alongside its U.S. approval. The company is also adding U.S. direct-sales coverage for approximately 5,000 customer locations, investing in customer marketing and commercial-execution tools, and expanding direct-to-consumer and direct-to-customer fulfillment through a packaging facility in Puerto Rico.

CooperSurgical identifies fertility-market drivers as rising infertility rates, later maternal age, growing awareness and access, more fertility clinics, technology development and disposable-income growth. Its fertility business is adding clinic accounts, expanding within existing accounts and introducing products and services. The company expects continued fertility strength, supported by genomics and its product-development pipeline. It has retained CooperSurgical following a strategic review and intends to focus on organic growth and capital allocation.

In Q3 2026, MiSight organic growth was 20%, led by EMEA and the Americas while China reduced Asia-Pacific performance. China has been affected by orthokeratology pricing pressure, knockoffs and market disruption. The company is reengineering its China business and reviewing growth channels. It expects Q4 2026 CooperVision revenue of $692 million to $706 million and CooperSurgical revenue of $364 million to $374 million.

Structural risks

• Medical-device, laboratory and pharmaceutical regulation can delay product launches or require clearance, approval, certification, inspections, quality-system controls and post-market reporting. Noncompliance can lead to penalties, recalls, operating restrictions, withdrawal of approvals or production shutdowns.

• CooperVision and CooperSurgical operate globally and face currency movements, tariffs, trade barriers, supply-chain disruption, international legal and compliance requirements, data-security rules and local regulatory restrictions. Foreign-market growth can also be limited by customer preferences and distribution channels.

• Sole-source materials or components are used for certain silicone-hydrogel lenses, medical devices and IVF products. If a supplier cannot provide sufficient material on time, the company could face inventory shortages and disruption of product supply.

• The markets are competitive, with rivals that may have greater financial resources, research budgets, sales forces, market penetration or manufacturing capacity. Earlier launches of competing silicone-hydrogel products or contraceptive technologies could affect product adoption.

• CooperSurgical demand depends in part on reimbursement and payor coverage for procedures using its products. Coverage or reimbursement changes, cost-effectiveness assessments, and healthcare reform can reduce demand, restrict access or add pricing pressure.

• Acquisitions can create integration costs, leverage, accounting adjustments, management distraction, employee losses, unfamiliar regulatory obligations and risks that expected revenue, margin or earnings benefits do not materialize.

Bottom line

Our reading

Our reading: Cooper is a two-segment medical-device business built around recurring contact-lens replacement demand and a fertility and women’s-health portfolio that combines consumables, devices and services. [item1]

Our reading: Its operating model depends on global commercial execution, regulated manufacturing and dependable access to specialized inputs; channel-inventory actions and weaker China performance show that reported revenue can diverge from underlying demand. [call_prepared; call_qa; item1]

Our reading: The company’s lens range, practitioner channels, intellectual property and cross-category surgical portfolio support its position, but it competes with large medical-device and contact-lens companies across its markets. [item1]