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I thought historically, Mr. McNally has put products on the market before selling the company - please correct me if I am wrong. But it seems to me that if that were the case for Titan and we market the SPORT ourselves, it would tend to maximize long term shareholder profits as well. I have no qualms about letting this team bring a product to the market; they have been successful doing that in the past and they know what they are dealing with from a logistical standpoint. From what we have seen, if that is their plan, then it is planned very well and thoroughly. So if he said another $40M is needed to commercialization, it means they have a plan and they have calculated the costs to get there, and the estimate is $40M. If we get bought before that happens, it will have to be a really sweet deal; otherwise they execute according to the plan. And I am quite happy with that plan. I would gladly wait a couple extra years for multiplied returns. I bought as high as $2.20 in 2014 and as low as $0.11 last fall, but I am not waiting around all this time for a $3/share buyout, and I will be extremely disappointed if that is what happens. I don't expect to be disappointed when all is said and done.
Has anyone seen the ISRG Single Port pricing yet?
The molded plastic parts (covers, etc.) were featured in an article someone had posted a link to several months ago. The order was bumped up from three of each to five, per the article. There is a good chance the additional two sets are still with our development partners and may be part of the ongoing development units which will be used to roll in the changes to reach the final design freeze. All according to a reasonable plan!
By comparison, I am contracted to a large international bio-pharmaceutical company, working on an instrument which will add substantial capabilities to the existing state of the art. When the current developer was enrolled to help finish the design, the estimates were between two and three months to finish the final form factor and software. I have been on the program almost four years, and the "two month" estimate occurred almost 5 years before I got there. The product was officially launched just over a year ago, but I should have another couple years on this program. So in the medical device development world, it is not uncommon for schedules to be adjusted substantially, or even horrendously. The way Mr. McNally's team has been executing the plan on schedule is truly commendable, and I dare say rare in this environment. The dedication required from the team, as well as the foresight to have generated an accurate and executable plan is commendable, and is a testament to the capabilities of this team. You may have noticed over the past year that I typically refuse to refer to Titan's president as anything other than Mr. McNally. To me, the appropriate title and commensurate level of respect is well deserved. I do hope he and his key team members are able to join us in Vegas.
Just catching up for the day...
Observations:
Adrock said Buy! Intriguingly, he failed to note which type of word that is. (Side note: it's a Verb. He either missed an opportunity or he's just playing with us now!)
Flenderson - more videos would be GREAT! Looking forward to that. Also 30 separate one-on-one meetings is almost worthy of a press release by itself! And as you noted, addressing Dr. Estape's comments should not cause any delay because the schedule already had these tweaks factored in. Your affirmation of this fact is appreciated!
Glg20, just for your information, I feel that sarcasm is my job on this board. If you want to share additional sarcasm here, you will have to buy me a shot in Vegas for stealing some of my thunder. Then I will have to buy you a shot for helping me with the task of keeping sufficient levels of sarcasm on this message board. And for the record, my social security number is 012-34-5678. Please don't share that with the Nigerian prince who keeps trying to send me $3,500,000. Although that would buy around 10 million shares!
Also, Many bad rumors of surgeons saying Titan very good but lurkers with hidden agendas no good! Ungood grammer and spelling tell Titan boss McNally that someone wants him shut dien because they are afraid his robot may be too good. If you sell your shares for good price of 35 cents, I would like to buy. I tell you this as favor to nobody. Buy shares now if you can!
I didn't know if we can get a couple updates...
Dr. Bingener-Casey doesn't appear on our SAB any more; should probably be deleted here.
Our page shows 10 approved patents; last I knew we were 14 and counting.
Also, there still seems to be a fair amount of info from routine web searches which reports outdated info pertaining to things like schedule and pricing. Some indicate SPORT should have been CE marked Q4 2017 and FDA cleared Q1 2018; there were written in the first half of 2016 but still show up on searches. Potential investors running into these articles are not going to get the full story. I am wondering if it might be prudent to provide a more complete story, including overcoming the 2016 work stoppage, hiring our CEO and developing a history of meeting published milestones, putting us on track for FDA and CE approval of a further-improved SPORT system, etc. My thought is that potential investors see outdated information and think it must have failed, when in reality the future is now brighter than ever although slightly delayed by those events. We can't change what is out there, but we can offer more updated, complete and accurate information to help explain what otherwise looks bad for Titan.
Sport, are you the one who manages the intro page for this message board?
Does this same person have any specific connections to garner said unknown information? Or does "doctors are buying" constitute this same harbinger? Just curious... We'd all love to have a truly reliable source of information!
"News coming" is almost a given, as we are now three weeks removed from the last official press release, so an imminent PR by itself is not proof of any advanced insight. Some indication of the content, however, would make a more plausible argument for the idea that your sources are authentic and connected.
And what might this news be? And what might your source be? Though if genuine, the sentiment is appreciated; however, the lack of detail rightfully calls the content into question.
Wow, that is quite a pop for ISRG! $46B market cap. If Titan can hit 10% of that market cap in a few short years, that's almost $9/share with all warrants exercised.
I said before, I'm fine with that... I'm still a month away from my IRA contribution and I would prefer to pick up more on the cheap side! And I'm still not at all worried that it won't fly when the time comes, so if it stays down for a few more weeks, I'm golden! If it takes off sooner than that, I'm still in really good shape.
As was pointed out earlier today, there is a definite pattern of inexplicable rise in PPS just prior to news. Maybe something is coming, and if it isn't earth-shattering, we slip back again over the next week or two. Or maybe Adrock is right, tax loss season is over so maybe some folks are getting back in (I assume after their 30 day window closes).
I gotta say I'm with you on that!
Big news = big PPS jump.
Typical news = PPS says "Meh."
That has become the Titan way! Which is fine; I can wait for the big news.
I'm re-posting this from this morning since it mysteriously disappeared... slight modification might make it acceptable this time; I really don't know what was wrong to begin with but...
Over the past year or so, this stock has been "impervious to logic" (one of my favorite quotes from an old Dilbert strip; giving credit where due). It would not surprise me at all if 2018 remains a year of buy opportunity and we hover under half a buck. That would not concern me at all either, as long as the company continues meeting milestones. Bear in mind, a Q1 milestone is to complete the system design and update the Design History File for the regulatory filing. This is part of the plan and on the schedule in the prospectus, but when any news comes out about redesign, some folks (even on this message board) will get freaked out and panic and sell and suppress our PPS.
Maybe some people in 2018 will see this as the opportunity it is and jump in, driving up the price. If not, its their loss - I will continue to accumulate when I can. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if the big run for PPS is still a year away. More opportunity for me is all good.
And I fully agree with recent posts from bucc and scalpel about moving on. This is a different company than Trixie (TRXC) and their shareholder frustration is understandable, but before chiming in here with nonsense which may apply to Trixie but not to Titan, they needs to read the Titan prospectus and see that management is doing exactly what they said they would, the plan is executing nicely, and the future is bright over here. Trixie never had the level of exuberance in surgeon feedback that we are already seeing here for SPORT, and Senhance sales are the proof.
I just went back to it and it loaded fine. So just in case, I downloaded a copy...
Specific issues (I won't call them complaints; as noted they were opportunities for improvement) should be fairly easily addressable.
Camera pan angle should be able to be increased fairly easily. Given their access to technology to control the two arms, I would think the added pan angle should be fairly simple to implement. If they were to downsize the camera profile as also suggested, it would likely facilitate easier improvement of pan angle as well.
Smaller incision probably shouldn't be necessary; it was otherwise noted as advantageous for removal of larger tissue masses so that is an advantage they would lose by shrinking the incision size, and since it is within the umbilicus any way, I see that as more of a disadvantage than an advantage. Therefore, the current camera profile isn't really cumbersome given the current mechanical design, so I consider that suggestion (camera profile) to be debatable. The physical lens size might provide additional advantages in image clarity as well, so there are more points to consider than the obvious ones.
The potential advantage of the smaller incision seems to pertain mostly to loss of insufflation upon penetration of the CIT. As Dr. Estape noted, a better port such as a valved port could most likely fix that concern without losing the advantages of unencumbered tissue removal through the larger port. In my own head, I'm wondering if there is a viable semilunar valve design which could afford an appropriate seal during the insertion process. Tissue extraction would need to be considered for this design, but I don't foresee any drastic issues there either. But I also don't know if tissue extraction could be performed through the CIT, or if CIT is removed and something else goes in manually to retrieve the tissue bundle afterward (I'm not a surgeon). I also don't know if there could be some sort of mesh or nylon bag into which the tissue could be placed, and maybe dragged out through the CIT along with the camera and arms (I don't know if the CIT is a hollow tube or contains internal features to maintain some alignment of the arms and camera assembly). I'd really love to see a SPORT and some of the components in person!
He does make mention repeatedly of the strength of the arms and end effectors, which is nice to hear. With the 25mm port, I can't think of much of an advantage to downsizing from 8mm arms to newer 3mm or 3.5mm designs, and apparently the strength is truly an asset. I recall seeing one of the arms holding a one pound weight in the air for some period of time without losing its position. Shrinking the arm diameter could conceivably reduce the "strength" and holding power. If there was an advantage to shrinking the arm diameter, maybe it would be to add a third arm or some other feature (do our arms currently have suction capabilities built in? Could they? Maybe hollow out a piece of one of the end effectors or add a port near the wrist with a small piece of tubing? If we already supply rinse solution for the camera lens, we could possibly use the same solution after suction to clear the tube and help prevent clots.).
He also mentioned that when navigating to peripheral locations (under Surgeon Ergonomics and Workspace) I can't tell if he is more concerned with increasing the reach of the arms or if he was feeling a reduction in strength or torque when arms are near some limit in their angular deployment. If it is strictly a request for greater reach, that also shouldn't be too difficult to implement - either through increased segment count in the flexible arms or increased length of the segments of the arms. Although either solution could conceivably reduce available torque, this might be overcome by varying the deployment length of the arm through the CIT. It also didn't sound like a major concern by Dr. Estape, just another consideration for future tweaking, and I can envision possible solutions just off the top of my head. If I can do that, I'm sure their team can do it much better than I can.
I assume this white paper was written shortly after Dr. Estape used the SPORT system a couple months ago (despite the 2018 indication in the footer, which is probably just a publication date), and has since been deciphered and edited to optimize its impact on our public perception, so all of these pieces of info which are new to us are well known by the Titan team.
All just my stream of consciousness thoughts as I was reading the white paper. It's a very nice write-up overall; it acknowledges that he was using a prototype unit and as such, it also acknowledges that his input represents fairly minor concerns in a ground-breaking platform!
Sorry... missed a decimal point. Brain not yet properly caffeinated.
I'm perfectly happy sitting here for another 6 weeks. I can't make my SEP IRA contribution until mid-February and I really hope I can still snag shares at three for a buck! But as I told Rebster, if we stay put for 6 weeks, I win... and if it climbs in the meantime, we all win! So for me, the possible outcomes are really good or... really good!
I never pitch any stock to friends or family. I will mention it and that I hope it gets me to the early retirement I am envisioning, but the onus is on them to act and jump in. Surprisingly few takers so far (only a couple over the years and they are really mostly just dabbling at best). It will be interesting to see their reactions if/when I announce my retirement in 2 or 3 years while they continue on as is for another decade. I would never tell anyone how they should spend their money but if I can lead by example, I believe I could make a few more friends and family VERY happy!
Happy New Year to all; be safe and happy!
Very true that there is still risk, and they would be putting up more money into the risk scenario. The counterpoint is that by exercising the warrants earlier, they are actually reducing that level of risk by infusing a little more cash into Titan. Two sides to that argument and I do see both sides. Honestly, if I held warrants, I don't know which way I would go. But as a non-warrant-holder, I sure do prefer the idea of all warrants being exercised as soon as possible, because it reduces everyone's risk, including mine!
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One reason some warrant holders won't convert when pps reaches .50-60 cents is because they have bought twice as many shares at half the price then their Warrant exercise price and and don't want to invest any more money'swhe there is still risk. They can wait and take some profits later from standard shares down the road to pay for the Warrants after they are well into the monies.
BelizeMe
Planning committee, I am definitely in!
A Titan Medical Holiday Poem
T'was the year before clearance, and all through the house
All the creatures were stirring, plus trolls and a louse.
The message board idle, not many will visit
Holidays, time of good cheer... or is it?
With most of us home with our family and friends,
The trolls will appear, and their rant never ends.
Most of them envious Transenterix fans
Know they can't compete with McNally's big plans.
Their jealousy's clear, they're always nay-sayers
'Cause ISRG and Titan will be the big players.
The SPORT systems sit in the three training centers
To quickly impress any surgeon who enters.
With Patel and his prostates, and Arnold doing Hysts,
But Senhance was clearly a swing and a miss.
We'll navigate through a quick reverse split,
Once the uplisting's done, our stock is a hit!
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a 510K coming, and clearance is near!
The early results are fantastic, I'd say,
And we shareholders patiently wait for the day
When SPORT is approved, watch our price per share rise,
And sales will take off - the limit's the skies!
We'll all meet in Vegas and party with Scotch
To celebrate victory under McNally's watch.
To all you believers that SPORT will be here,
A Merriest Christmas and Happy New Year!
My best to all...
Mustang
How did we close UP after the day we were having? Is it because cowboinker announced his departure from this board??
How long has Dr. Swanstrom been on our SAB? Just curious... and not surprised to see another SAB name in this article.
Maybe it's just me, but the sentiment I pick up from the statements made by these surgeons seems a little more positive than from Columbia, or at least slightly closer to some level of excitement with their optimism for SPORT.
It is particularly nice to see a couple of them call out specific advantages of SPORT and single-port technology: Dr. Ruurda called out the advantage of single port for specimen retrieval (I presume having a larger incision for bigger tissue packages?), and Dr. Barrett calls out the advantages of single port without crossed-over instruments of the competition.
Someone once referred to the crossed-over instruments as being like playing tennis but only being allowed to play backhand shots. It can be done but it is a major handicap. Apparently SPORT hits perfect forehand shots!
Yes, they have been around for a Longtai(m).
The biggest two arguments in that article seem to be that Titan claims there are 10,000 placement opportunities. I agree that is false information. They neglected to count the 1500 ISRG placement sites. Not everyone is happy with ISRG. The author also implies that Titan believes they will capture all 10,000 opportunities. A look at Titan's many presentations will show they hope to capture maybe somewhere around 10% of those opportunities (fewer, really, knowing some may be multiple SPORT sites), and that is their basis for subsequent financial projections.
Next, the author compares SPORT to Senhance. Credibility? If it wasn't already out the window, it is now.
Shamefully, he seems to have some knowledge of the surgical robotic marketplace. Sounds to me like he is PO'd that he lost money by getting into Titan at their peak PPS and didn't have the patience to wait for what's ahead for the rest of us.
Any reason it SHOULD not be there? Definitely. It should not be there because it SHOULD be some multiple of that.
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any reason market cap should not be around 300 million in the next 3-4 months?
Nice! More patents = more value! I assume the market will respond as it usually does to this sort of excellent news, and we will close around $.296 today. I'm starting to believe that our uplisting can't come soon enough.
New Hampshire... Not far from Rebster! Are you in this area?
They both got some but... still expensive. $63K/yr per kid times four is half a million dollars. At least it is a great school with a stellar reputation for students graduating immediately into profitable careers.
Just sent in two tuition payments (My last double payment! Son graduates in May! WPI is an expensive school and both kids are there...) so whatever I can scrape together over the next several weeks ends up being my SEP IRA contribution for 2017. Otherwise I already would have hit the 500K share mark back when we were at eleven cents.
Because I need it to stay as low as reasonably possible for several weeks, that typically means it will shoot up just to spite me. Murphy's Law... and as I say all too often, "Me and Murphy, we's tight!"
I will still cross my fingers and hope for one last "three for a buck" deal for my retirement.
I'm perfectly fine hanging out in the low .30's for a while yet. I'm a few weeks away from my next SEP IRA contribution, and I want to get as much TITXF as I can when the time comes!
When it "pops", it should be more than just a pop!
I'm just curious as to why 12 is the magic number for unit sales to maximize our returns. I can see if we are TRXC and twelve units takes twelve years to sell, then our max return would have been immediately after FDA approval. If Titan gets clearance and within a month has a backlog of dozens of orders, that's a completely different story. Is there either a statistical significance or a historical significance to this 12 unit sales figure for optimized returns? And is this for a buyout situation or a Titan-goes-it-alone scenario? I'm not asking to try to be critical; you have mentioned this number previously so I was wondering from whence it came. Thanks in advance!
They keep hitting their milestones. Each one can get a PR and it IS news each time they do. If this isn't news, then nothing they ever do will be "news" because it is all expected. FDA approval? Won't be news because we expected it? Nah, I have to disagree.
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Not sure how market will react. This is a pr, but its not news... market expected this and most likely titan was sitting on this for after closing announced
Strasbourg facility is "dedicated to the management of digestive diseases." Does this mean they are likely adding more indications? It would be interesting to see which cases get performed there with SPORT; I'm sure they will tell us soon enough. And more indications means more value when it gets cleared for sale.
"Other companies" can only mean ISRG and TRXC.
When ISRG hit the market, they were almost immediately embroiled in a patent infringement suit with Computer Motion so their share price was suppressed substantially until they cleared that up (by buying out CM in 2003). Otherwise they could be considered to have been in a similar situation in that they were introducing a disruptive technology to the marketplace. Also, that was nearly 20 years ago, so $2.5B today would have been a substantially smaller number back then (probably closer to $1.5B). Probably the closest we have to an "apples to apples" comparison but still a vastly different situation. A couple years of being in the clear, their market cap was about $4B (2007), or about $5B in today's dollars (ballpark numbers, obviously).
As for TRXC, they do not have or represent a disruptive technology. They are not bringing anything substantially new or different to the marketplace, and the market has responded accordingly by showing extremely little interest in buying their systems. Clearly not an "apples to apples" comparison at all; ask any surgeon on this board or review the public statements by surgeons who have used SPORT at Nicholson and Columbia - there is no comparison there.
Per those docs, we DO have a disruptive technology and it is a HIGHLY DESIRABLE technology, priced lower than the competition.
Personally, I don't see $5/share before FDA approval but once that final hurdle is cleared...
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5$ not Rs is is around 2.5 billion valuation prior to FDA.
also 2.5 billion prior to FDA is not what other companies were valued at. similaroy
He did mention in the presentation that they haven't delivered the third system to Europe yet but will by the end of the year. I guess that will merit an announcement. Otherwise, holiday season is pretty much here and businesses tend to slow operations... tough to be fully productive when bloated with eggnog and rum. I personally am not expecting any additional announcements of real substance; possible exception being if someone at today's presentation liked what they saw and has a few milly sitting in their pocket... Are there any tax scenarios for which a very large year end investment provides major tax benefits?
$40M more to COMMERCIALIZATION in 2019! This represents some remarkable operational efficiency, and he considers that a fairly safe estimate with no corners being cut. Commercialization includes design completion, manufacturing plans, test plans in place, everything up and running with people on board to perform all these regulated tasks; also includes a stream and some stock of parts and sub-assemblies ready to go, and units being built. Early units are typically fairly low in profit compared to once production is really up and running full bore, so early retail units could conceivably cost the better part of a million each to build, test, and ship. Given the imminent demand for these early units, they will need to have a quick ramp-up for production. Only $40M more seems quite reasonable.
Bottom right corner of video panel should have 2 icons, Flash and Dash. Select the one on the left. We might have outdated Flash.