STAAR Surgical (STAA) Stock Forecast & Price Target

Staar Surgical is benefiting from a durable China recovery, with 2Q’26 net sales of $93.5M, up 111.0% YoY, driven by more than 100% growth in China to $52.3M and continued EVO+ adoption without evidence of distributor inventory build. Profitability is also inflecting sharply, as adjusted EBITDA reached $20.0M with a 21.4% margin, well above estimates and supported by 74.5% gross margin, lower operating expenses, and a reversal to $19.7M in operating cash flow. The outlook is further strengthened by the permanent CEO appointment, a debt-free balance sheet with $181.5M in cash and investments, and the view that ex-China softness is temporary while long-term demand, moat, and operating leverage remain intact.

Staar Surgical is facing a deteriorating competitive backdrop in China as a domestically manufactured phakic lens launched in the spring of 2025 at roughly one-third the cost of STAA’s ICL, while early clinical impressions appear comparable and broader adoption is only temporarily delayed by the need for 6-12 months of follow-up data. That grace period looks limited because experts see EyeBright potentially taking 10%-15% of the China ICL market near term and as much as 40% in coming years if the data hold, pressuring a business that derives almost all of its revenue from ICLs and relies heavily on foreign sales. At the same time, surgeons still view LASIK as the dominant refractive procedure for structural reasons—lower cost, faster recovery, and installed capital incentives—leaving ICL confined to a narrower niche and limiting Staar Surgical’s ability to offset competitive share loss with broad market expansion.