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Well with all his JnJ insider history, you might expect that when JnJ/Google begins bankrolling a major competitor to Titan, they might decide it's time for him to go.
The guy has no presence so Titan has no presence. Do you really think, given how he presents himself, that he really has a clue? Does he owe anything to the stockholders, like a message now and then?
Who is running Titan and what are they doing?
Any study that can't or won't address tallying deaths and poor outcomes of the comparative 'conventional' surgeries carries little weight with me.
I know many instances personally of unexpected negative outcomes, unexpected complications, and yes even death brought about (despite the best medical skills and efforts) by conventional surgery.
Both methods entail risks, and have advantages and disadvantages.
That being said, the important takehome message is the statistics about how the mechanisms can fail: arcing, dropped parts, overmotions, etc.. These should set the parameters for new designs to exceed.
Meanwhile, it would be nice to at least hear an innocuous update from the great leader, Hargrove, telling us that they are still showing up for work every day. Really, he's the freakin' CEO of a public company. How 'bout a little PR pops?
The Titan clown show has a lot of nerve calling itself a publicly owned company.
That's what I think.
They should have just gone private from the start, and spared INVESTORS the trouble.
Hargrove is a BAD FIT for a startup, and the doctors are the typical wusses, bad businessmen, and poor scientists. Tell me the name of ONE engineer or programmer who WORKS for Titan.
Who the hell is in charge? What a bunch of jerks.
ANY next announcement should be a BOMBSHELL, but we'll probably be treated to his great-grandson being hired as PR manager.
Go on, defend these Canada-based, crap exchange, penny stock nitwits.
Agree completely.
Why, as a public company, shouldn't we know who the partner is that Titan decided as the effector manufacturer ("a worldwide supplier of endomechanical devices")?
Hargrove's announcement indicated that it was a done deal so why shouldn't that be out in the open?
They told us who the imaging component company is and that was stated to only be an option agreement.
Right, JnJ/Google will sit on their hands for the next 2 years while they wait for SPORT to get CE, become a success, and then decide not to partner or price themselves substantially higher.
If JnJ/Google is partnering with Titan, it is happening now, and not contingent on go-it-alone CE in the indefinite future. SPORT is too far along for that. If JnJ/Google likes what they are seeing they are already be in the picture (and we are not privy to knowing about it yet), (and Ethicon is the effector manufacturer).
That's why, unless there is a bombshell announcement relatively soon, I don't think Titan is who JnJ/Google is making references to.
IMO
If you are correct that Titan will benefit from these announcements indicating MIS robotics is a big market and going to be hotly pursued by some very capable companies, that does not appear to be happening so far. Instead the price drifts down, sometimes on moderate daily volume (for Titan, that is).
If I was an investor thinking about MIS, I assume I'd come up with hits for Titan, read what little is out there and conclude they are far in the lead and a great bet, especially at this price.
However, that does not seem to be happening. I can't explain it except to say that it may indicate a sense of low confidence on such a small and silent company, trading at low valuation on a small foreign exchange. Titan is doing nothing to create some market momentum for themselves in the name of being a player. Apparently, they don't think that is of any usefulness.
I suspect they already have the basics of a platform in place, probably from an academic project. The knowledge, skill, and experience level of the planned hire is pretty exhaustive. I can't imagine anyone with all that being anything but a lead person in a development group.
More than two years away, but deep pockets pays for time, if needed.
Titan needs to be throwing money at SPORT (Ximedica). Ximedica may be a great consulting and contract company, but whether they are driven to "create" SPORT as a marketable device with the same passion as Titan is not known. Ximedica will get paid and stay in business one way or the other, even if SPORT is a fizzle. I'd still like to know that there is an experienced and driven technical Titan person "onsite" at Ximedica, and that Ximedica considers its future fortunes are tied in with the success of SPORT.
That is why I am negative about the apparent Titan management team. Who is really doing the pushing now to get this done?
Probably because Hargrove has one of his grandchildren doing their website and he's busy at summer camp. "Bertner?", "Bertner?", "Anyone, anyone?"
Ximedica must have them. Whether extra were assigned to the SPORT project I can only hope.
I seem to remember Ximedica had adds for personnel that were robotics oriented around that time.
Anyway, I'm sorry to sound bitchy about Titan, again, in the face of what should be steady positive developments, but I just don't get confident vibes from this company. I am not into companies making BS press releases and half the personnel information you see on a site like Cambridge Medical Robotics could be overblown nonsense, but that is the way tech is played these days. Titan should have very good chances to make it big, if the platform can actually do the job. But this amateur hour appearance is just strange. I don't know who is at the helm; I don't feel any sense of urgency; I don't know that they are making the right moves. The pps reflects that the market doesn't see anything special happening here. Remember, two years ago people were talking like we'd be seeing a repeat of the ISRG story.
Anyway, I'm done posting for a while; wasting too much time. If I can break even on my investment on some decent uptick I will seriously consider getting out. These guys don't impress me that they have what it takes to go big.
If they don't read this board out of sheer curiosity alone then they are idiots.
50% of what we all know comes from this board. Board members have written better copy on the company than they have.
They should be very interested in what this board's members like surgeons and medical market professionals have to say. Also, the investors.
I maintain that on a day-to-day basis, "Titan Management" is not managing. That's my gut feeling. The stock price, given where they are at developmentally, reflects that, IMO.
Compare the Management Team and Board of Directors at Cambridge Medical Robotics to the same at Titan Medical.
Doesn't give me a great feeling.
Titan: no engineers, no visionaries, no "leaders", no innovators, no spokesman to speak of. Good surgeons, yes; but what else? Rayman is a biophysist; heard from him lately? Berler, Bertman?; I can't even remember the name of the company they signed on to do whatever. Hargrove, who shows up with nothing at a trade show but an old video. Hires his daughter; what is she up to? Deal with a secret effector partner. Optical system from a company who can't even produce a decent website, run by Fowler? Old video posted days after the AGM meeting.
OK, we have Ximedica working for us, but who in Titan runs that show? Somebody should be, or should Ximedica own SPORT?
Cambridge: Looks like a pretty strong team. Great industry experience. Engineers. Physicist. Entrepreneurs all. Aerospace connections. They are behind but could move fast. Looks like some guys who want to get things done, seeing the opportunity.
Titan better light some fires under their own asses, get the pps up, raise some money, get some visibility, hire some good people. This dribble-drabble on a two bit Canadian exchange at $1.20 after 5 years is ridiculous. Hell, we are supposedly going to upset ISRG in a year or two. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!. Does this make sense to this board?
Great find!
Only goes to show we better raise the visibility, get some money in the coffers, and get this show on the road posthaste.
I don't think pops Hargrove and crew have heard the news yet. Or if they have something to tell us, TELL US. That's what we invest in Titan for, pops.
Raven II is an open source architecture as far as I can see. Academically-based.
However, this "company" AppliedDexterity
http://applieddexterity.com/
seems to have been created by Raven II originators and researchers. Guided by a tech start-up CEO type.
The RAVENTM community is what makes the RAVEN a powerful tool for innovation in the field of surgical robotics.
The RAVEN team’s goal is to advance the field of robot-assisted surgery by creating a research surgical robot that builds collaboration. Researchers can program and modify the RAVEN system but it serves as a standard platform so that they can share their software and improvements. The RAVEN is designed to be an extensible, robust, and programmable research tool to allow researchers in engineering, surgery, and computer science to experiment, innovate, and collaborate in the burgeoning field of robotic assisted surgery.
We invite you to the RAVENTM Community. Already placed at sixteen key robotics research centers, the RAVEN is a proven, third generation surgical robotics testbed that provides the nucleus of an open innovation community. This community is united in the application and support of a common platform, and each member has the power to pursue and develop their own intellectual property. Improvements made by the community to the core robotic manipulator will be made available to the entire group. Individual members then have the opportunity to pursue their own proprietary advances in procedures, attached instruments, supervisory software, and human/machine interfaces.
Applied Dexterity is here to accelerate and facilitate your work.
Well if it was Titan, and Titan is going to be testing, refining, and seeking regulatory approvals over the next two years (let alone trying to raise money), what is JnJ/Google/Ethicon doing in that time? They announced their collaboration about two years early. Another way to look at it is that Titan's own published timeline is now highly suspect. We shareholders are not going to see what SPORT looks like as it is developed? CE and FDA approval will be based on some "early version" of SPORT, already two years behind.
Also, if Titan is the chosen platform, doesn't it make sense that money is provided NOW to move this wonderful collaboration along. JnJ/G/E isn't going to sit around with their thumb in their butt and watch Titan slowly go through the hoops.
I agree Raven II is developmental testbed, but if JnJ/G/E will have a platform out there in two years, what makes a SPORT collaboration a distinctive JnJ/G/E product? More likely is that a Raven II - like system will be developed with very advanced Google ideas that will set it apart from ISRG products.
JnJ/G/E would need to be actually rolling up shirtsleeves now, as we speak, in order to be adding anything to SPORT that makes it any different from the tested, rollout that Titan tells us about.
I honestly don't think you can keep that all under wraps at this time. We would be talking about five companies actively involved: Titan, Ximedica, JnJ/Ethicon, and Google. There would be some chatter, somewhere that we would pick up.
Right, you did not.
Just threw that in there as a general comment.
In my opinion, the acquiring company (if it is JnJ/Google) would have not made their press releases:
"Johnson & Johnson today announced that Ethicon, a medical device company in the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, has executed a definitive agreement to enter into a strategic collaboration with Google, Inc., working with the Life Sciences team on advancing surgical robotics to benefit surgeons, patients and health care systems.
The companies will bring together capabilities, intellectual property and expertise to create an innovative robotic-assisted surgical platform capable of integrating advanced technologies with the goal of improving health care delivery in the operating room. The collaboration was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation in California."
without a clear cut plan of what platform they were to involve themselves with.
A re-read of this is making me think that who they are speaking about is likely the Raven II (http://rll.berkeley.edu/raven/) open-source system, which is a HEAVILY software-oriented, pro-autonomous action system. For example, software is being developed by Raven collaborators to venture into such "futuristic" capibilities as computer-controlled debridement. That would be right up Google's alley, not Titan's SPORT.
Titan is a manual direct-drive surgical "robot", maybe close to production, but not pushing into uncharted territory like Raven II anytime in the near future.
Also, the early buzz on this board was that Ethicon was not the likely effector maker that Titan partnered with.
My bet now is that JnJ/Google is not dealing with Titan.
As to whether "negativity" on this board is a discouragement to potential Titan investors, are you kidding me? Titan has a website that should be it's promotional tool for investors. Obviously, they could care less about that promotion. We shouldn't be jonesing for board members to be writing articles promoting Titan. If they had a spokesman who was the face of the company, and periodic info releases, that would be a bit better.
If a Titan/JnJ-Google-Ethicon robotics deal is not a reality at this time, then there is little reason to think JnJ-Google-Ethicon will sit around and wait for 2 years for Titan to come around, or fail. They will be identifing other paths to surgical robotics that will contest with Titan. They can't wait forever.
It's strange to think that the (our investment) future is already decided, but we just don't know. But if the deal is decided, what's the point of keeping it secret? How can it be kept secret?
The worst case (IMO) is that Titan thinks it can go it alone, or be too greedy to take advantage of the potential. With a track record of zero public image, they won't be able to raise the cash to pull this off. Meanwhile, ISRG just takes it all in and adapts daVinci as needed to keep position as top dog.
"The path of least resistance is to just get the PPS above the exercise price. Not sure why they're not doing that..."
I don't think Titan "management" knows either. In other words, there is no leader in this company. Hargrove is a marketing man. The doctors/engineers don't know sh*t about running a startup. Do they even talk? Is there a face-to-face, day-to-day environment?
Who's leading Ximedica for Titan?
Bertner is AWOL as far as we know. Again my conclusion; this company doesn't have a visionary, let alone an effective management team, or a CEO. A lot still needs to be done with the nuts and bolts, and regulatory hurdles, but IMO they are f*cking up the financial buildup for this launch and their eventual market.
Titan is a penny stock on a 2nd rate exchange.
That might be closer to the truth than you think. I still think this company might very well be very poorly managed. How can what they are up to be so in the dark? It is bizarre in my opinion.
On a day to day basis, who do you really think runs Titan? Keeps the momentum gong? Pushes to make things move along? Drives the Ximedica component? Strategizes about financing and marketing?
Who's the spokesperson for this company?
To my mind, how can it not happen again? Unless SPORT turns out to be a POS and doesn't get CE and/or FA approval.
Why would they need to if they are apparently on track to be part of JnJ/Google?
I hope they are, but if they are and someone with big pockets is committed to their platform, why not just announce it, fund it, and get it done? A big ticket M/A company is not going to let them go under because they are inept at building speculative market cash, are they?
I realize they did raise funds last time, but that was when the timeline looked like a short-term big payoff to the investors.
Agree completely. Unless they are sitting on a powderkeg of good news (about partnerships/MAs) and are being deliberately quiet, then I can only conclude they are failing to seed for developing any interest or ability to raise cash. The pps blows, the exchange blows, the PR blows, and it all tells me there is no behind-the-scenes information getting or going around out there.
I'd have probably bought some more in the last few months if any of the information looked like it budged the pps and volume, but can't because I intrinsically think they might be nincompoops sitting on a goldmine.
In for the long haul, unbelieveably still in the red, and wondering what the heck they are up to.
At a minimum one might have expected small ramp ups (and falls) with the releases of late.
I was refering to the presentation of the platform to anyone who would be impressed by medical technology (how about investors?).
In their defense, actually Surgibot at least has a video where one gets the sense of the totality of the device, as limited as it seems to be. daVinci has videos galore that illustrate what continues to be state-of-the-art and impressive technology. It looks to me that this MicroSurge is daVinci with more-forward looking technology being developed, like haptics, and motion tracking. If you have the resources to apply to that vision, as DLR seemingly does, you are in a good place.
I have never seen SPORT, have you? I'm not speaking about CAD concept stills. And at the effector end during live surgery (which I agee is where the rubber meets the road), we've seen very little.
Don't you think it's time Titan started getting the market interested? Don't you think it is time Titan stopped being a penny stock?
Good find. Apparently from the listed papers going back quite a few years, haptics are also an acknowledged part of the DLR vision. They look like they are heavily involved in space technology.
The surgery system looks really good, integrated movable table, arms that can be passively pushed out of the way without moving effectors were very impressive. It sounds like their big target is being able to perform beating-heart cardiac surgery. That's not going to happen too soon.
Don't know where this is really at along the path from ambitious concept to a producible market product but overall it makes SPORT look like Surgibot.
However, won't be cheap. Might be overkill for some procedures, like daVinci can be.
The Titan folks would be well advised to know a lot about DLR.
Did I just say, "The Titan folks would be well advised to know a lot about DLR."
Obviously, a system like DLR MicroSurge has a real think-tank, academic, and big bucks high tech organization behind it. Maybe even research grant money and some government funding. Titan has knowledgeable real world but less academically technical surgeon advisory board (that we have no idea of how they contribute), and are content to operate in the dark on a shoestring since they won't raise capital-generating awareness of themselves as an investment.
Of course, maybe JnJ/Google is their white knight. Sure hope we find out soon. The sooner SPORT can hit the market and make some real splash and money the better.
That's good to hear from a surgeon. I know you've said similar things in the past. What I would like to know is what would be the wish list for a true innovation at the procedural level (for example, haptics, or surgeon-controled third arm, or an innovative effector) that if packaged with the SPORT platform, would really take this a step above daVinci. Haptics isn't in the forseeable future, I know.
Titan is a good 2+ years from selling in the U.S., IMO, and delays of all sorts can always be counted on. In that time, ISRG will be working on downsizing their platform to stay competitive.
I'm sure the boys in Toronto have thought this all out, but I'd feel better if I knew they were all eating lunch together outside the Ximedica 'Robotics Lab'.
Well in regards to "SPORT", all the robotics come in through the singe port, but all the "non-robotic" ancillary endoscopic tools come in through others. I've been waiting to have this apparent misnomer explained by Titan in some form or fashion for 2+ years, and have mentioned as much on this board. My impression is that they have reduced 3 daVinci incisions (2 effectors and a camera) down to one. That is good in itself.
The only ones not complaining apparently are the surgeons on this board, so hopefully their feelings are good regarding SPORT.
Again, lack of information makes for a lot of idle speculation on my part.
Exactly where I am at. I'm not feeling a revolution, just a lower cost alternative with a better footprint. That can still make for a successful product, but if they have one or two radical innovations it could make all the difference, hence our early discussions about having a third port in the barrel for a "fixed" retractor, clip applier, etc.. Going to 19mm is good for incision size but limits what else you can do with that port.
I trust they know what they are doing but with so little info forthcomng from Titan it is hard to get excited. Getting the surgeons interested should be a big part of their advance promotion but I guess it is far too early to play that hand, if they've got it.
Yes, I stand corrected for 19mm if we are understanding them correctly.
49 seconds into the video shows 5 incisions being needed to do this partial nephrectomy for a mass with daVinci, which is the procedure that the Titan video simulated.
SPORT will have a single "large" (24mm)incision for the the snake arms port, then at least 1 other as shown for introducing supplies, probably 1 more for insufflation/, and 1 more for retraction.
That makes for four at least.
So, where is the great advantage as we understand SPORT at this time?
Compare the recent SPORT video of a partial nephrectomy for tumor removal to this as performed with daVinci:
I agree that we are not getting the full view. An optimistic opinion of the released-video strategy would be that they knowingly threw it out there to make competitors think they are not so far along. However, I'm sure ISRG and others know full-well that Titan has more than they are showing. So again the question, why show it?
Also, the "fumble" in the video suturing, while I don't think is a big deal, is an amazingly bad "faux pas" from a PR standpoint. Also the voice over. Can we do away with the grad engineer student voice and substitute a mature surgeon? I've performed animal surgery and have written detailed surgical description notes. What was said sounds like amateur hour.
This company will have enormous problems with (potential and real)market presentation, at this rate. It's time to ramp this up, Titan.
At this stage in the game, I find it surprising that these guys would release any video without a clear strategic intent. They are beyond the lab benchwork type of presentation. They should be showing some polish if they have it.
If they don't want to show things that are going to bring investors on board, or ramp up the surgeon/hospital purchasing interest, then why show anything at all. I hope the surgeons on this board are all saying "Wow", but that's not what I'm sensing.
Management PR/IR comes off to me as strangely naive. Like Uncle Jed goes to NYC to make a big presentation of a new hog-washer that Jethro invented out of an abandoned tractor tire.
If these guys are just painfully honest, then OK, but they are not going to impress anyone yet with that video.
Maybe the surgeon is quite skilled, but the arms are not so good. Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed by this video. More of the same compared to the first surgery video.
"Single port SPORT" still requires what appears to be 3? additional ports, external clamp application. Don't know what the voiceover was about given the right-hand, left-hand duties. Sounded like an excuse of some sort. Not sure that there are retractable arms yet either, that can be switched for other intra-operative duties.
I'm not a surgeon obviously, but I didn't sense improved dexterity.
They better have more up their sleeve. Anyway, a crap video for an update on progress. You may think I'm being negative but I think we need to be shown more. $1.34 with all this news. Sheesh!
A hearty ho-hum to management.
Get on a better exchange and raise awareness of this product.
"I really wish they would focus on getting off the OTCC BB/ Pinks sheets. It just limits the amount and type of institutional ownership which we desperately need. "
AMEN!!!
Yes, the MST system appears to be a much-refined version of the Surgibot concept. If I was with Transenterix I would be concerned that MST is very strong competition.
Agree, good mention in the right kind of publication. Hopefully, it will cause a few people to look up Titan as a potential investment.
Unfortunately, no real information beyond what we all know. And that being said, if the FT 'article' writer is on top of things and did a little investigating, they themselves have uncovered NOTHING in terms of close-to-market competition for Titan.
Yes, an imaging company with a mediocre website about imaging.
However, we were schooled a while back on this very board about how websites don't mean anything. Well...
Fowler is the Chief Medical Officer and co-inventor at Platform Imaging.
Nice positive news, but kind of keeping it in the family doesn't attest to an independent company going out on a limb for Titan.