Intuitive Dominates in its 1Q18 Earnings

The competition might be mounting in the surgical robotics space, but it isn’t having much of an impact on Intuitive Surgical - yet. The Sunnyvale, CA-based company managed to beat out Wall Street analysts' expectations in its latest quarterly earnings. Intuitive brought in about $848 million in the first quarter of 2018. This was a 25% increase over the $680 million the company earned this time last year. “We had a strong first quarter in pursuit of our mission with customer use of our systems at the top of our growth range, continuing momentum in new system placements, and stepwise progress in the development of markets outside the U.S., said Gary Guthart, president and CEO of Intuitive, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “While we're pleased with our performance in the quarter the opportunity for improving in surgery is substantial and much more remains.” Intuitive earned about $2.44 per share, ahead of analysts’ average estimate of $2.07. Shares of the company were up 5.3% to $458.50 after the first quarter results were reported. Intuitive's surgical platform, the da Vinci, originally gained FDA clearance in 2000. However, a lot has changed in the space since then and after years of being the sole player in the market, other medtech firms are now entering. Just last year, TransEnterix received a monumental clearance from FDA that fundamentally changed the surgical robotics landscape. The Morrisville, NC-based company received an FDA nod for the Senha...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business Source Type: news