Let ’s Face It, the Robots Aren’t Coming, They’re Already Here!

The robots are here. For years Intuitive Surgical has remained relatively unchallenged in the surgical robotics market. The Sunnyvale, CA-based company has had the da Vinci robot on the market since 2,000, and no other firm has come close to matching its impact in the industry. But Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson are hard-pressed on giving it a try. Separately, the two companies have been building robotics solutions that will undoubtedly be competitors to Intuitive’s da Vinci. New Brunswick, NJ-based Johnson & Johnson found a nice entry point to compete through the Verb joint venture with Verily Life Sciences. However, in 2019 J&J stepped decided it was time to run the whole show – and bought out Verily’s interest in Verb – for an undisclosed sum of course. This acquisition was perhaps the grand finale of a year’s worth of deals and moves J&J put in place to further enhance its surgical robotics technology. Who could forget the company’s acquisition of Auris Health for $3.4 billion– which was one of the largest M&A’s in 2019?  David Noonan, Director of Systems, Algorithms, and Robotics, Auris Health, was one of the featured speakers during MD&M West’s Keynote speech. The deal not only netted J&J the Monarch technology, which is used in bronchoscopic diagnostic and t...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Assembly and Automation Source Type: news