Robotic-Assisted Surgery: Taking MIS By Storm

In the market for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) products, one of the hottest and fastest growing segments is robotically assisted surgical devices (RASD). In the last 15 years, Intuitive Surgical Inc., the market leader in RASD for soft tissue applications, has steadily increased penetration into MIS and demonstrated that robotic-assisted surgery is not just a gimmick or niche market, but a multibillion dollar global market opportunity that is projected to reach more than $10 billion by 2021.

In 2015 alone, Intuitive reported $2.38 billion in revenues and 652,000 procedures performed with its da Vinci Surgical System, up 12% and 14% respectively from 2014. Given the company's success, it's not surprising that MIS product manufacturers big and small have taken notice and are gearing up to challenge Intuitive's dominance with robotic-assisted products of their own, particularly as some of Intuitive's patents begin to expire in 2016. However, bringing a robotic-assisted surgery system to market has proved challenging from a technical, regulatory and IP perspective, and the time to market has been slow. Some companies have had a surgical robotics platform in development for many years, whereas others hope to gain market access through acquisitions or by licensing advanced prototypes or other IP from academic institutions known for their robotics research and development programs