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Writer's pictureSteve Bell

The surgical robotics market is segmenting - what do you do?

Once upon a time - a long time ago - there was a surgical robot that stood alone in the world. The da Vinci S. It pointed at the heart - missed and hit the prostate. And as they say…. Well the rest is history.


But for 20 years (give or take a few entrants that tried to muscle in) surgical robotics remained a one horse race as we moved through Si (3 arm - 4 arm), Xi then SP and now da Vinci 5.


Because of the architecture of the da Vinci multi arm robots - and the console concept (ie. Closed console - with a surgeon non sterile at the console away from the table) combined with the size and mass of the robot… we ended up with one main segment for robotics.


Main OR blocks, more complex cases, robotic surgery in a robotic paradigm and all at a perceived much higher cost.

Now before you blow your stack and say “of course we have DVs in ASCs, and they do less complex benign procedures” - I want to state I’m being a little generic here and painting big buckets.


Generally (note the word) there was one choice, in one location, with one way of doing it, in higher end procedures that could justify the time and cost.


But in the past five years - I’d say that has changed. And as new formats of robots (including DV) with very different use profiles, size, cost and target procedures have emerged. What we are seeing is a segmentation of the surgical robotics market.


This is how I think you can start to slice this market:

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