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It's trying to at the moment!
250 million pre-split shares traded in the first ten minutes and up another dime sounds like pretty solid support so far today.
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Do you recall when the stock ran from .10
To .55 cents inside of 4 weeks with much less progress than we have now.
I thought Mr. Serafino was a replacement for Bernie, and I wasn't sure if Mr. McNally's appointment to COB was permanent or just taking a load off Mr. Barker's previous return to temporary filling of the Chair. But regardless, given the aspirations of the company, they seem to have a rather small BOD and certainly room for a couple "partner seats" in my opinion!
Maybe that is why Titan has been holding BOD seats open for so long; they might have handshake agreements in place for various types of partnerships with organizations such as JnJ which each want a Director seat when the partnership is announced (and the partner funds start flowing in to Titan).
A non-dilutive distribution deal maybe? How is their reputation in the medical marketplace?
There are a lot of other companies in Florida, and that only matters if there is any substance to the rumor to begin with. There were a few too many exclamation points in the initial "Heavens to Betsy" article for my liking.
CUIN2, nice to hear from you and nice to see the Rush logo still alive and well after Neil's retirement! I need to get Geddy's new book.
Anyway, I'm in for 26,800 at $8, and still not worried. Will pick up more when I can to average down further. Started Roth IRAs for my kids; seeded each with 500 shares at $2/share. Hope to add to it for them soon if things go well.
Until Titan sells its first SPORT unit, there is NO threat of patent infringement lawsuits. A company has to show financial harm to bring suit. No Titan sales means no financial harm to ISRG, so no lawsuit. Some web sites indicate that Titan actually would have to turn a profit, not just revenue, before they can be sued for patent infringement. And, of course, they would have to be infringing on someone else's patent. Mr. Brar is working hard to ensure that isn't going to happen. He probably knows ISRG's portfolio as well if not better than they do.
There really shouldn't be a lot of "nice to haves" for Gen 2. They have had a pile of top surgeons from around the world providing feedback for years at this point.
The concern about competition doesn't seem to be well founded at this point. Nobody has gone after Trixie yet. There has been very little news about patent infringement activity in the robotic surgery space. After ISRG's Computer Motion debacle, all teams seem to be concentrating hard on their intellectual property portfolios, and Titan has one of the best. Sure, it is always a possibility, but so far there is no evidence to support your concerns. Trixie, Medtronic, CMR... all at least as far along the development path as Titan and none of them seem worried, despite their systems having more in common with ISRG and with each other. No snake arms in the bunch; we should be cleaner than the others who are all using wristed end effectors or in-line wrist joints.
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It really all comes down to this...do you / investors have the confidence that they will understand the impact of being able to wait for Gen 2 for the nice to haves ? We know another raise will be needed in 2-3 months
Here is what I see...I see the competition really starting to come at us soon (if not already) because they will NOT just let Titan waltz in and grab market share. So naturally, you would ask how could they do that - how could they make Titan's path more difficult ? Well:
- Lawsuits
- suppressing price by using their trading desk to short Titan each day
- enhancing their SP device (Intuitive)
My point is Titan is not just up against themselves but they will have to navigate the waters filled with hungry crocodiles (ie: competitors).
You're right HC, they can't keep tweaking it. But I'm quite sure the plan at this point is to run with what they have. They went from proof-of-concept hardware to prototypes which they have been playing with and doing minor upgrades to since Mr. McNally came on board. The design changes going into the confidence build have rolled in all the surgeon feedback which they deemed appropriate, while updating the hardware to regulatory-compliant, current-spec hardware. For production, they need modern electronics which will not go obsolete in the first couple years of production, and they need the requisite traceability for medical device hardware. They have been working closely with the FDA for years, but even more closely since Mr. Jensen came on board. They know what they need for hardware and documentation, and that is what they are currently building (probably done building by now but waiting for another raise to be ready before they announce completion - I too am skeptical about a few things).
If MORE improvements are merely desired, as you suggest, there is no way they will interrupt the program flow for things that can wait for Gen 2. All of the "nice to haves" are in there now, or they aren't going into Gen 1 (production). If there are any showstoppers from a regulatory standpoint, they would need to tweak the design accordingly, but their close relationship with the FDA should preclude any such necessity. They should already have a full understanding of what hardware is needed; from here they are only going to hash out details of clinical testing (the who and what and how many, based on things like predicate device comparison).
Much of the investment world doesn't fully understand the medical device development process, and as the normal development process has been playing out over the past two years, some of these very normal things have been misconstrued by the investment world as negatives, when they are in fact completely normal. Medtronic slipped about a year. Normal. We slipped half that much, and it's viewed as a catastrophe. In reality, it's GOOD news, because when a schedule slips, most companies add a buffer so it doesn't happen again. Like Medtronic, Titan should now be on a safe, conservative schedule.
Whereas my area of expertise is NOT the investment world, I have not always (or ever) shared the hyper-critical viewpoint which is now so common here. Of course I am disappointed in the current share price and what it means for imminent dilution; that is very frustrating. As an investment, this has not been pretty, but from a hardware perspective, the future is extremely bright for this platform. All I can do is keep averaging down as much as possible in the meantime, probably shortly after the next raise as it will likely be timed well with my next SEP IRA contribution.
The confidence build means a lot more than you are giving it credit for; it is effectively the final product. Design freeze typically means the FDA has given sufficient feedback on the clinical trials that they can freeze the design officially to start production planning, with extremely limited risk of needing further tweaks.
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They cannot keep tweaking it...I guarantee you that once the confidence build is over and testing commences at the 3 sites - that MORE improvements will be desired...at some point it has got to stop.
Why should PPS go up when they need more $$$ inside of 3 months? A confidence build means nothing because they still have to start testing the final product and a design freeze doesn't happen until the 50+ nice to have's added to the "final" list are dwindled down to a dozen or so and the device is retooled.
Picture I saw of the CMR system still showed multiple pods around the table, presumably four (one per arm) unless the far side of the table had a multi-armed unit and the near side had one arm on one pod. Not as massively intrusive into the surgical suite as Senhance, nor would it inhibit patient access as drastically as Senhance, but still occupied both sides of the bed.
Has anyone heard targets for system cost, per case cost, service contracts, etc.? I think cost is going to be a huge factor in determining who prevails in this market and who becomes just another also-ran within a few years.
Can anyone tell what kind of percentage of trades have been short lately?
Adding to that, there were several surgeons previously reporting that the strength for grasping and moreso for suturing through tougher tissues was superior in SPORT than in the da Vinci offerings (the suturing comment came up earlier this year, I believe). Therefore, we may be getting "average" scores in an area that has long been identified as a major shortcoming in the currently fielded competitors. The same surgeons could conceivably have rated da Vinci much lower than SPORT's mid-range scores if they apply the scale based on their perception of ideal, as opposed to a comparison to the competition.
Bear in mind that a scale going up to 5 puts 2.5 right in the middle, representing average. If the scale is applied competitively, 2.5 represents the competition in each category and makes us look damn good overall. If it applied idealistically, then the average score of 2.5 is better than the competition, and we look even better than the aforementioned "damn good."
Also, the supposed "weakness" was previously reported as being only at the far edges of the working area for SPORT's arms, with superior tensile and compressive (pull and push) capabilities in the sweet spots where most of the action was occurring (the independent grasping mechanisms should be unaffected by arm position). I wish I could find a link to that report; it may have been in an early white paper. If anyone can find this, it would be useful for this conversation today!
So Flybabyfly, you're saying that we aren't the only ones with some confidence in the future of this investment? Good to know!
If "accretive" is synonymous with "sarcastic" then yes, clearly!
40 minutes into the trading day and 314 shares traded for a one cent bump.
Maybe tomorrow?
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Huge Volume and Volatility to come.
We are not too far away and a possible small raise.
No worries here about the oversight on their part... "Market report 2017" means very little when we're this close to 2019. A year from today, we CANNOT be overlooked in this type of report when current reports are written.
Olé, Chuflas, and have a great day!
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No mention of Titan but what else is new
https://www.researchcosmos.com/reports/global-medical-robots-market-report-2017-industry-analysis-trends-and-market-overview/5034561
Very little info seems to be available about this conference; I found this on the wen site of another presenter:
In its twelfth year, the Medical Technologies and Diagnostics Forum is a one-day event that profiles public and private Med-Tech and Diagnostic companies, including those in Diagnostics, Personalized Medicine, and Next Generation Sequencing. Participating company presentations are hosted throughout the day, highlighting some of the most important topics in the Med-Tech space.
Doesn't look like a big deal - Unfortunately. Because we sure could use a big deal!
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/titan-medical-present-canaccord-genuity-133000708.html
Burn rate appears to be about $3M/month lately, and that includes building new systems, which implies the development engineering burn rate must be slowing. The last prospectus shows a bolus of cash going out Q1 and Q2 2019, but given their existing presence at the three sites and training program was done (might need a couple tweaks for the revised system - shouldn't be too hard to tell a surgeon how to use the windshield washer!) it should minimize the spending. $30M cash on hand covers Q1 and Q2 but I don't know how much of the $12M costs for the confidence build are already paid, so if it gets us to the end of June, I'm more than happy. That said, they don't want to run dry in the meantime, so a raise in the Feb/March time frame wouldn't surprise me (maybe sooner). Barring a partnership or distribution announcement, I'd be surprised if we DIDN'T get hit with another raise by the end of March! I agree, that is probably the biggest issue with this stock at the moment.
As far as getting through FDA and CE, a big chunk of the Q2 money covers FDA preliminary (Qsub) filing so hypothetically it might not be too egregious, but who knows.
All I know is I'm not selling; we could risk it and sell now hoping to buy back cheaper after another raise, but any announcement of partnership or distributorship could tank that plan instantly.
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How much more $ do they need to get through FDA/CE?
Funding/dilution the problem with this stock....
I recognize a couple factual discrepancies; I won't provide corrections for others which I know about.
As for me, the Mustang got sold and a 306HP hybrid carts me around most of the time, with an occasional stint behind the wheel of my truck (I consider 4WD to be mandatory up here in New England). Sneakers on weekends. Grew up camping but wife is more of a hotel snob than a tent tenant, so not any more. I think SPORT19 and I are on civil terms now, so Adrock can leave the cold cuts in the fridge and pour the next round instead, including one for himself!
All are welcomed to fix up their "iHub resume" in a like fashion!
My silence is only due to the fact that I was working, and although the more prudent thing to do is to ignore you, I will indulge you nonetheless.
Not sure what this "deal" is you have for me, but I am most likely not interested - why would anyone want to "loose" (sic) their initial investment? A ten year wait is certainly egregious for anyone who got in that early and hopefully their patience will be rewarded eventually. I was fortunate enough to only have a little more than half that amount of time here so far.
I do agree that we won't make as much as we should have, predominantly due to excessive dilution, a function of artificially suppressed share prices for so long which made for a couple rather depressing raises, but I remain optimistic that I will eventually do well on this investment, despite the many misconceptions and doomsday scenarios bandied about on this message board.
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Hey I got another deal for ya since you have so much trust and experience in the game. But you will have to loose what u initially invest and wait at least 10 yrs. and keep throwing good money at bad money because I say it will work out . Also in the end if it does work out u won’t make nearly as much because of all the mistakes we made and crooked people that are involved
Correct. But those timelines should have enough of a fudge factor to make them attainable in the real world, with built-in accommodations for an occasional glitch.
There are a few informal rules of program management, such as planning on only 5 hours of productivity per day per employee, regardless of if they are there for 8 hours or 12 hours, and add at least 50% to any schedule provided by an engineering department (they are inherently optimistic about their own capabilities).
I agree. With decades in the medical device and development realm and another decade or program management experience, I understand delays are a normal part of the process, so we may be in for another delay, but we should never know about it. It should already be baked into the current schedule.
Good program/project management knows not everything falls into place when it should, and they need to have a solid understanding of where their technology lies in terms of development risk and schedule risk. After about 9 months or so with this company, Mr. McNally's team appears to have identified these risks and made appropriate plans to ensure the released technology would be current, impactful, and have the best chance of market success. The announced delay last year was probably not only to allow incorporation of the requisite modifications, but I believe the delay he announced was a responsible and thoughtful schedule which also gave them sufficient leeway for one or two little inevitable hiccups. If there is a further delay, it should be imperceptible. If there are no delays, it means we should be coming in ahead of schedule.
Good budgeting matches the schedule, so "ahead of schedule" means "under budget."
That is how the game is played.
Side note: Congratulations Red Sox! There are a lot of things that suck about being from New England, starting with weather and traffic. It's nice that the Red Sox are no longer part of the "Why New England Sucks" list!
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Yes but it seems we are still far away. There hasn’t been any mention of marketing and design freeze. This leads me to believe we are in for another delay. Just an opinion.
There really hasn't been a ton of bad news lately... A raise is a raise, just a fact of doing business as a development stage company. The schedule slip (announced about a year ago) is also to be expected for this type of a project (see any other company doing this sort of tech, Medtronic recently...). That's just the way it is. That's really the worst news we've encountered here for a while... Maybe's Bernie's trading shenanigans, but he was removed immediately so the impact should have been minimal. Mostly it's good news being presented to a crowd who was jaded by the prior management team's delays, the biggest of which brought us the single port technology which is really the future of the company. The rest of the news is all good.
Let the past be the past!
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Regardless. These losses seem to recover fairly quickly barring any bad news. (Yes there’s been plenty in the past I know).
Sold 1.7M shares. Kept 66,000 shares. He kept 3.8% of his shares to show his continued confidence and support of the company.
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https://www.fairfieldcurrent.com/2018/10/22/william-n-starling-jr-sells-1700000-shares-of-transenterix-inc-trxc-stock.html
Wouldn't it make more sense to suggest Senhance for carving pumpkins and turkeys? Four separate pods means you can cut four separate pumpkins at once! And they are available for purchase, which means you could actually buy one... and since apparently nobody else wants them for surgery, there are plenty available! The very few SPORTs in existence are all spoken for, as are the new ones being built this quarter with all the enhancements, but Senhances are sitting in the corner of a warehouse like the ugly girl at the high school dance, waiting for someone to ask...
Vimeo issue of some sort...
When it first loads, it reports a video length of 8:28. When it starts playing, the slider bar only goes to 6:46, and mine stops playing a couple seconds before that point, with the circle spinning eternally trying to load. It's not just you... so maybe we can find a two-for-one deal on tin hats?
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This may have been covered awhile back but does anyone know why the end of this McNally interview in January was cut off towards the end when asked about FDA?
No tin foil theories at all. Seriously asking if it’s my internet connection or is it cut off? I was intrigued then it stopped :(
https://vimeo.com/256978109?ref=em-v-share
Yeah, I get it... Personally, I don't watch or post on Trixie's board, and I do not view Trixie as a competitor at this point because we are still a development stage company. I believe their success would bode well for Titan's future so I am actually pulling for them, despite the implications from their CFO's actions regarding stock ownership.
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you know where i am coming from. once the 4 musketeers have had there say on the trxc board then i will be done with the bs
Also untrue...
This message board has historically hammered Mr. McNally for not buying quantities of Titan stock on the open market in sufficient quantities to appease many posters here. It has been interpreted as a sign of low confidence by many; I always figured his 8M pre-split options were enough to make any additional buys insignificant by comparison and hence pointless. But there definitely has been a widespread perception that management ownership of stock is a direct reflection of management confidence.
If Trixie's CFO has a deal on paper whereby he knows he is going to land a few hundred thousand or million more shares as compensation, then selling everything now is not necessarily a big deal. But if that isn't the case, it sends a HUGE red flag to other investors.
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seems like your the only one who gives a rat azz who owns shares and who doesn't
That way I knew it was your post!
Time for some new lines and a couple facts...
Very few people are into this for $22/share, so the "down 90%" comment that you use in every post doesn't stand up to reason, and thereby calls other content from your posts into question. Starting to make them look like fud.
Your recent post history is quite repetitive! I think we get the point you are trying to make, even if it is false.
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better than the average bear boo boo and not down 90% on tmdi
more fud form the armchair investor. must love agony being 90% down great investment
that's ok keep up the fud
that's why 90% of the people that trade lose money in the market and why people are 90% down on tmdi.
and being 90% down doesn't sound like a very good investment
ouch 90% down should have bought more
yep tmdi looking good only 89% down now
Thank you, I appreciate the empathy. And I, too, don't fully understand why this board so often seems somewhere between contentious and hostile.
I would still be interested in knowing why Senhance is better technology than SPORT. I have always believed that the product makes the company.
If, in 2026, when SPORT has been for sale for 6 years, we still have yet to sell a dozen systems, I will consider you to thoroughly vindicated!
I'm starting to wonder why you seem to have such a fascination with cold cuts...
As a more serious topic, you seem to be pro-Trixie and anti-Titan. I can understand that you are more vocal about your disappointment in Titan's PPS than most, but you seem to be attempting to besmirch the technology with these "deli slicer" references. Do you honestly believe that Trixie has a superior technology to Titan's? The robotics market seems to be supporting the notion that Senhance and its European predecessor don't have much large-scale marketability, given the extremely limited number of system sales for a technology that has been commercially available since 2012. Haptic feedback was on Amadeus and Titan still has the technology in their portfolio, but surgeons indicated that they felt it wasn't worth pursuing in an advanced platform. The eye-chasing camera is a novel technology but with very limited usefulness during a surgical procedure. I don't understand why you seem to find SPORT so comical when you are supporting a device that is proving its undesirability with every week that passes without a sale.
I actually want Trixie to sell some systems in order to validate the marketplace as being able to support a viable alternative to ISRG. Trixie's success in system sales would be a huge relief to all imminent newcomers to surgical robotics. For some reason, that is not happening.
Please tell us all WHY Senhance is better than SPORT.
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cfo wasn't in need for a deli slicer
Their CFO needed the cash to beef up his position in TMDI!
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Wow, even more insider selling of TRXC! EVP and CFO (Joseph Slattery) holds ZERO SHARES of the company
https://www.nmsunews.com/2018/10/15/redux-and-future-potential-slm-corp-slm-transenterix-inc-trxc/
I have been thinking that for a while, or at least CE filing mid-year and FDA to follow. My suspicion is that when they announced the delay last fall, they pushed everything out further than necessary to give them a buffer and make it more realistic to hit the rest of the milestones. Very few complex medical device projects come in without delays; it is virtually impossible to predict a show-stopping snag when the program is in early design phases (or they would just be part of the initial plan). Delays are always a little disappointing but extremely common - just ask Medtronic. Easiest way to avoid future delays is to build in enough cushion in the schedule to deal with setbacks and still meet scheduled milestones, and if no issues come up, you look like heroes.
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Best part of the release...q filings 1 year ahead of schedule...
"Filed three Q-submissions containing detailed protocols for animal, cadaver and human confirmatory studies for review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA"), approximately one year ahead of plan"
Encouraging that my suspicion that Mac is ahead of his stated milestones is correct. May submit for 510 mid 2019 rather than end?
Post 77882, yesterday morning, I send a link to an article showing coverage by three analysts, two are Strong Buy and Outperform rating with $6 one year target, and the third is a Buy rating with a target of $11, giving a consensus target of $7. Whatever you saw on LinkedIn was probably the same info via a different channel.
Here's the link again:
https://www.dispatchtribunal.com/2018/10/03/titan-medical-inc-tmdi-receives-consensus-recommendation-of-strong-buy-from-analysts.html
JJ, it's Northland Capital Partners, Northland Securities, and Maxim Group. Not quite the big guys we'd like to get coverage from but I'm confident that will come later.
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Has anyone seen, or posted about the article about Titan on LinkedIn about a price target of $7
The problem is that it hasn't gotten that GOOD yet either!
When do Jets play my Pats? We can see which team sucks more this year! Tied with 1-2 records so far.
I see the milestone achievements as being independent of dilution, at least until we get closer to FDA-related milestones. I figure when we file for regulatory approval, PPS runs up enough for warrants to bring in some cash, and FDA or CE approval starts the real climb. Until then, who knows, but milestones haven't had the impact they should so far. Are we still being shorted to death? A plausible explanation, but I don't know enough about it to state that as fact.
I won't go quite so far as to say "Same rhetoric..." I think there is a grander plan to the PRs which I don't understand, combined with the legal side of what they can say which can't be construed as a performance claim for the device (which they can't state publicly until after regulatory approval). Given how tight-lipped they are about the device, I assume their legal team prefers to err on the side of caution. We don't get blindsided by violations and fines, but we also don't know nearly as much as we'd like to know.
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Thanks. This is a hard one to figure out. It can be huge but not if they don't change. Thus far, same rhetoric, same. Same dilutions. Will that change? Not without a major milestone achievement
I'm hopeful but unconvinced about another round of dilution. Logic (my logic, anyway) dictates that they shouldn't be exploring another raise until early to mid Q1 next year if necessary, but raises have been the area where they seem to least conform to what I consider logical, with the possible exception of just grabbing money when it's offered (a logical explanation for past behaviors, but it sure would be nice to hear that as an explanation).
As for solid news, that is never a sure thing with this company. They can get patents of huge importance approved in a vastly expedited fashion, and the PPS gives us a big yawn of indifference. Imminent news should include more patent approvals and a few new applications, plus a status or two about the current build process (I don't even know how many units they are building; we should be able to assume a minimum of one per training center and a couple spares are usually a good idea if affordable). If they can finish the confidence build before December, that would show great attention to schedule optimization plus viable hardware that is near design-freeze quality... That would be HUGE news. Finishing the build is slated for end of year, so I anticipate an announcement maybe the second week of December but would love to have that piece of news for Thanksgiving instead!
The other thing that I often find noteworthy in these discussions is the passage of time often going relatively unnoticed. We are in the final week of September, and next week begins Q4 already. That by itself merits consideration, and maybe a re-inspection of the latest milestone schedule to ensure we understand where we are in the process.
The dilution potential is the real wildcard in your equation; I wouldn't put it above your 65% threshold, especially when coupled with mediocre public reception of truly good news in the past. But Murphy's Law always screws with me, so I can't take chances of missing out when I have a chance to beef up my position further. If I need funds to clear, PPS runs right up until I can buy, then it drops right back down. But that's my life, I've accepted it, and I'm still planning to build my position further when resources allow.
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Do you believe that we get some solid news before next dilution. If I was greater than 65% then i would buy. But im not so sure