Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
You have to wonder if the guys quoted in this article even know about Titan. It's unbelievable, but I guess when you are the size of Google, JnJ, Ethicon, ISRG, Covideon, Medtronic, it must be like the Titans and Transenterixs of the world are like so much dog crap on the lawn. Even the tone they grudgingly acknowledge ISRG with can be felt, like ISRG is just dead meat from this point on.
"Medtronic's plan involves tying Covidien's interventional surgical devices to robotic equipment under development, with a launch hoped for later this year."
Really? I don't think they are talking about a full control robot here.
Good find. Thanks for posting.
As we know, SPORT with snakearms is a highly specialized platform. Others are possible. Probably the surg robots of the future will employ effectors through various mixed type of effectors, soft, snake, wristed, micro-miniature, smart, etc..
The earlier SPORT can hit the market, given it is well received and can do the job, the better we will all do financially. No one company will repeat the ISRG story. Be nice if Titan had the money (as we all knew we would need) to accelerate the final push. I realize money can't speed up regulatory approval.
To come to market organically is OK too, but risky with high tech.
Hargrove/Bertner likely caused that situation to occur. IMO.
ALF-X was designed through a European Commission and proudly boasts 100% Made in Italy. It is quite advanced having eye-tracking and haptics. Also, CE mark, and close to sales-ready. It has been used in human procedues (I think at the one hospital it is installed in for testing). Videos of it in action with a real patient (trans abdominal gyn procedure) are on youtube. With 3 single arm manipulator carts it does take over the room in terms of size.
Question is why did it sell out to a small unproven American company for 99M? Why wasn't it snatched up in Europe? Why did the market have no reaction to the purchase?
I am asking these questions seriously. ALF-X is a real (potential) competitor to SPORT.
Presumably it keeps a company safe from all types of potential litigation.
Doesn't help shareholders though, or investment it would seem.
Bertner's company is apparently the one who has counseled the "silent" PR policy that has brought us this share price.
Her connections to Titan go back at least to 2010.
You may agree or disagree with the silence, but the recent comment from Randall that they "weren't happy" with Bertner probably reflects Titan management's disappointment with the pps, given they followed her firm's advice.
This is a recent luncheon seminar given with Bertner staff as panelists:
Investor Relations Basics for Startups: Luncheon Seminar/Webinar
November 19 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
For those engaged in startups or considering a startup, and talking with investors, the WWII axiom “Loose lips sink ships” is good counsel. Learn why and what to do about it in this “Venture Building Blocks” seminar sponsored by the Kevin M. McGovern Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences.
What: Join this panel as they discuss “do’s and “don’ts” regarding how to communicate with your potential and actual investors, and how to avoid common legal pitfalls in these critical interactions.
Moderator:
Louis Walcer, Director, The Kevin McGovern Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences
Panelists:
Bruce Mackle, Lead Client Advisor, Bertner Advisors, LLC
Philip Coover, Client Advisor, Bertner Advisors, LLC
Blake Stevens, PhD, Associate, Harris & Harris Group, Inc.
Michael Foley, PhD, Director, Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute & The Sanders Innovation and Education Initiative
Lunch will be served.
Hopefully, the guy from Mayo will present something referencing his work with SPORT there.
I don't envision a booth, although I'd love it if there was. And without Hargrove sitting there, only Fowler and other surgeons and engineers.
Based on previous Titan history, we will probably have to remind them to prepare something. It's in March I believe.
The SurgRob blog site hasn't picked up on the recent big SPORT "reveal" yet either. I'm trying to contact the guy who runs it.
Uptick? This is an uptick?
The SPORT platform, while we all think it looks great, is only one platform "style" out of many; think ISRG, ALF-X, some being developed by academic researchers, etc..
People at Google/JmJ/Ethicon may and probably have other ideas. So far, there has been no inkling that Titan is doing anything but going it alone.
By the time SPORT would finally gets out there, sell, and be adopted medically, Google/JmJ/Ethicon will have invested much time and money moving their own choices for a platform along.
Crazy how this thing can't advance or hold a penny of pps rise. Already down on today's purchase, LOL!
Bizarre ain't even a good word for it.
Bought a bit more myself today.
Well if Randall was willing to say (or imply) that about Bertner, it's probably worse than that.
Good for ALF-X.
TRXC owns all patents on eye tracking camera technology?
It's been developed, and continues to be developed, all over the world, for many applications. I am sure there are myriad patents and design technologies.
Surgeon I have spoken to told me auto-tracking of camera view would be the most important technological advance for robotic surgery.
Considerations like yours are why I hope Titan management reads this board and absorbs the worthwhile information to be gleaned.
You know it would be reassuring to hear Hargrove at least mention that "... our consultants and partners have been hard at work, etc., etc., setting the stage for..., etc., etc.,... , ".
I personally wonder if Bertner has even been on the payroll now, for a long time. They could have dropped her weird firm a long time ago.
ALF-X is also quite large if they require a separate cart for each effector, as seems to be shown on their TELEAP ALF-X website. Of course, we have discussed multiple SPORT carts as being a future possibility, except that Titan also appeared to be planning a multi-SPORT armature.
http://www.alf-x.com/en/
Yes, I noticed that wuss comment he made. "I encourage...(look at the pictures)"; Jesus Christ! Get a major article out there, fool.
He sounds like grandpa jones asking people at the donut shop to look at his wallet photos of his tractor.
EXACTLY!! EXACTLY!!!! Been preaching this with others here for over 2 years. This is a public company, not a private investment startup.
As much as we have joked about the ALF-X, I feel it is the real source of "near term" potential competition for SPORT. ALF-X has appeared to have gone undercover for now, and for all we know it could be getting "Americanized" at Ximedica. Remember, it already has a CE mark. I have no idea what it's real world sales have been, or if it actually for sale.
Website still says entirely made in Italy; this may be part of the TRXC deal when they bought it.
Good observation, and I hope you are right.
There are often posts on here with information worth having Hargrove pay for.
How's that Alf-X workin' out for you?
If the Chinese are as smart as I think they are, they could "own" this platform, make a fortune for Titan, and jump start Google/JnJ as the next world leader for surgical robot expertise.
Looks Great!!
Difficult to see from the photos how the "insertion tube", for "instrument exchanges" actually connects to the patient effector tube. I think they purposely are not showing the working end, yet. Hopefully soon to follow.
Right, and that's why HC has a right to bitch. JH is a poor CEO. Reiza or whatever his name is shouldn't even be on management.
Understand your point, but Titan is cash-strapped because they failed to develop a pps that would encourage investment, market interest, warrants etc.. It has been a poor strategy IMHO, not suited to the world of high-tech success, especially in such a hot sector as surgical robotics. If in the end the reason they would give is that they needed to keep a low profile, I'd maybe buy it. But personally, I think it is arrogance and inexperience on their part. What kind of f'd up management team is it that we don't know if they even sit in the same building once in a while.
Other than that, I do believe in the product as long as they can get it out in a timely fashion. Otherwise, big names could steal their momentum. Well, actually, no one knows they have momentum. Get it??
I know a tech-savvy pediatric general surgeon who specializes in MIS techniques. To this day, he still knows nothing about Titan although I've mentioned them from time to time. That tells me his colleagues also know nothing (or could care less) about Titan at this time.
Management absolutely did a horrible job at building any expectation in the market (investment and consumer). We are paying for that ignorance or arrogance now.
Hopefully, the Mayo connection will get the word out. And, our own comments on any article we find.
We should all add comments to the end of that article promoting Titan. I will.
Interesting, but we are still years away from a robot going after leaking vessels by itself, or making quick incisions without a surgeon's input.
Other than that, if his exposition is actually news to the investment public, then I can understand why there is no interest in Titan yet. It makes it even more remarkable that ISRG ever achieved the valuation levels it did (and has).
Right; inspires no confidence for me to spend more money buying into a black hole of speculation.
I'd love to know if Hargrove and Fowler are surprised at the pps.
The Mayo news is great.
Zero PPS response.
This is not manipulation; this is TOTAL ignorance by the health care sector of Titan as an investment opportunity.
One good article in a reputable financial publication would make the pps take off.
I bet on about a 3 cent drop. You are too negative.
Exactly!
Titan farthest along but with the least press and a pps out of synch with common investment valuation.
Bizarre.
The big question is whether SRI uses snakearms. If not, then the controllers that seem similar are probably from the same source, and the hand motions they are used with are different for wristed vs. snakearms, or that is moderated by software to actuate the two types of effectors in the right way.
I still think Titan is going this alone, for now. Nothing else can explain this pps.
No. I think all signs of the past couple years indicate Titan will go it alone, until they are pressured to sell out. Even with all their progress, they are marginalized into obscurity at this point. Big news articles about Google/JnJ etc., and even more shadowy startups, but Titan has a real product just about ready and the pps is sub-dollar.
Hargrove is out of the picture for being a presence in robotic surgery. Fowler is all we have going for Titan.
"...that will integrate technologies such as advanced imaging, data analysis, and machine learning to enable greater efficiency and improved outcomes across a wide range of surgical procedures."
Even with a Google, that technology is still a few years away from the market as a minimum. This generation of sureons don't need that stuff; they need hand/eye to effector control. If SPORT is a capable product to just execute quality surgery, that is all Titan needs to get to market, but REALLY soon to create a niche for themselves.
Thanks, BK.
I hope Titan management isn't offended.
I think the market reaction is simply delayed. No buzz out there for Titan, hasn't been for a long time.
Give it 24-48 hours. However, I think we will still be lucky to crack a buck twenty five.
Great news though!
Perhaps they are restructuring, and offered Titan a good deal. Or, plan to do further work for Titan as a small operation.