Intuitive Surgical and Computer Motion Merge

http://trueforce.com/News/ComputerMotionNews/Computermotion20030307.htm
Article in Computer Motion News
March 7th, 2003

Intuitive Surgical and Computer Motion today merged into one company that combines their strengths in operative surgical robotics. Before the merge, these two companies were the unprecedented giants of robotic surgery. “Both of our companies have made tremendous contributions to medicine by delivering less-invasive surgery with surgical robotics,” said Intuitive Surgical President and CEO Lonnie Smith. “By combining…technology and talents, we believe we will be able to provide surgeons and hospitals with the best possible products and support to serve their patients’ needs in minimally invasive surgery.” Intuitive Surgical’s da VinciTM and Computer Motion’s ZEUS® surgical system platforms would be used in new developments.

Robert Duggan, Chairman and CEO of Computer Motion promised that a collaborative effort will offer benefits to patients that competing efforts would not. He claims that sharing technology in networking, articulation, and control and visualization will be able to upgrade both the da Vinci and Zeus products to make surgery even less invasive.

This article marks an extremely important day in the world of robotic surgery. The merge of Intuitive Surgical and Computer Motion seems to almost guarantee faster developments in minimally invasive robotic surgery. Reiterating what was said by Robert Duggan, the effort now can be focused on developing better products as opposed to competing with each other. The merge can also lower the cost of the products to make these robots more attractive to hospitals.

Surely, that was the case. In 2004, the year ensuing the merge, the total sale was $138.8 million (51% increase from 2003) with a total revenue of $60 million. More systems were being installed in hospitals. Just in 2004 alone, 76 da Vinci systems, each costing $1.5 million were sold.

Nevertheless, some promises are still not upheld and it will be very interesting to see when things change. Now over 3 years after the merge, other than an increase in sales there seems to be only modest improvements. The cost of a da Vinci device is still 1.5 million dollars and has yet to show significant decline since the merge. Also, since the merge, the only new FDA approved innovation is in the field of gynecological laparoscopic procedures. The robots used for these procedures however, are still essentially the same.

So, this article marked a very important day in robotic surgery where the two major oligopolies of the industry merged. The merge promised new innovations and further developments in robotic surgery. However, in our opinion, in terms of the devices used in the operating room, not much has changed since then. Certain procedures may have been refined but the overall technology has lagged. This may prove to be one of the main problems with robotic surgery today. As we know, the benefits and disadvantages of robotic surgery essentially cancel out at this point. Robotic surgery today is about the same as manual surgery in terms of effectiveness. Surely now that Intuitive Surgical Inc. has access to technology from Computer Motion, we should expect the developments of more efficient robots and robots used in a wider range of surgeries in the near future. Even though this has not necessarily been the case in the past 4 years, it should still be noted that sales of their products have increased and the popularity of robotic surgery has also increased. Now we simply await the arrival of new robots.