Robot wars, Competition is heating up

Are surgical robots better than surgeons ? Well first of all surgical robots are not autonomous. They require a surgeon to operate them. Gallbladder, prostate, abdominal, knee and back surgery are some of the beneficiaries of the new technology.  The primary impetus for the development of a small incision is lower risk of bleeding, infection, and a much shorter post operative recovery process. The length of inactivity diminishes by weeks.

Robot wars: $60B Intuitive Surgical dominated its market for 20 years. Now rivals are moving in

It was the femoral artery of a rat that piqued the curiosity of Gary Guthart. Then a new hire at a research institute spun from ­Stanford University, he was assigned to a surgical robotics lab. He was asked to sew a severed artery back together by hand, and then to try it again with a prototype robot.

“That’s what people have to do in surgery?” Guthart recalls thinking. “That looks like both a really interesting, important problem and a really hard ­problem, and that got me really excited.” 

Three years later, in 1996, Guthart was working at a startup called Intuitive Surgical, which had licensed technology from the institute, SRI International. Intuitive launched a robotic surgical helper, branded da Vinci, in 1998. The da Vinci would go on to change surgery in the same way the iPhone has transformed cellphone use.

Today, nearly 5,000 da Vincis are in operating rooms, used in one million surgeries per year. Intuitive went public just after the tech bubble peaked in 2000, and still the stock ended the dec­ade 17 times higher than at its IPO. Why? Because, until now, Intuitive has had the business to itself. The price tag on a da Vinci is about $1.5 million. Plus, it sells about $1,900 in replacement parts per operation. The company’s 30% net profit margin eclipses Microsoft’s.

But Intuitive might not be alone in the operating room much longer. Read more from Michela Tindera on Forbes. 


Speaking of robotic surgery, Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday that it plans to spend over $5 billion to boost its robotics program, buying startup Auris Health for about $3.4 billion in cash, plus additional milestone payments of up to $2.35 billion.

Today, nearly 5,000 da Vincis are in operating rooms, used in one million surgeries per year. Intuitive went public just after the tech bubble peaked in 2000, and still the stock ended the dec­ade 17 times higher than at its IPO. Why? Because, until now, Intuitive has had the business to itself. The price tag on a da Vinci is about $1.5 million. Plus, it sells about $1,900 in replacement parts per operation. The company’s 30% net profit margin eclipses Microsoft’s
Guthart, 53, has been chief executive since 2010 and is sitting on $315 million worth of Intuitive stock and options based on February 13 closing prices. But now he’s going to have to work a little harder. Medtronic, a medical-device maker with sales eight times Intuitive’s, and Verb Surgical, a partnership between Johnson & Johnson and Alphabet, are expected to enter the surgery robot market in the next year. They’re likely to compete on price. And these heavyweights are also making inroads into Intuitive's future markets: J&J announced Wednesday that it would pay $3.4 billion in cash for Auris Health, a rival robotics startup with a device to perform lung biopsies.


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