J & amp;J Talks Up Surgical Robotics Plans

Few medtech sectors are as hot as surgical robotics is right now, so it comes as no surprise that analysts tried to dig for information about Johnson & Johnson's plans for the market during the company's third-quarter earnings call Tuesday. "I couldn't be more bullish around how J&J is going to create value in this space," Ashley McEvoy, EVP and worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson's medical device segment, said during the call in response to an analyst's question about surgical robotics. "The goal that we're trying to achieve is really to make medical interventions smarter, less invasive, more personalized, quite frankly, to change the standard of care, not just for the next 10 years, but to 20 years and 30 years." The New Brunswick, NJ-based company strengthened its surgical robotics offerings earlier this year with its $3.4 billion acquisition of Auris Health. Through that acquisition, J&J added the Monarch platform to its offering, an FDA-cleared robotic system currently used in bronchoscopic procedures. McEvoy said Monarch is off to a great start and the system has been used to conduct more than 1,000 bronchoscopes.  "We have a very healthy pipeline with Monarch for not just lung biopsies, but potentially lung treatment via ablation, and potential treatment via oncolytic viruses so that program is well on its way," she said, adding that future applications of Monarch could include endourology for the trea...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business Source Type: news