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Nice to see insider confidence with the upcoming benchmark(s). We'll have the prototype of a smaller, less expensive console alternative to the status quo out soon.
Just put in a trailing stop loss order to break even on this run. Big cushion though, so hoping to continue the ride up to $2.2 or so. Great product line.
No one here (clinically trained, at least) is misguided about the functionality or capability of Surgibot. All these medical devices are different means to roughly the same end -- a successful case. Surgibot is capable of completing the same bread & butter cases that ISRG machines and SPORT's design can do.
But Surgibot isn't anything revolutionary, nor is it arguably economical, either. It is (expensive) one-site laparoscopic surgery with the marketing capability that it is "robotic" surgery, therefore hospital so-and-so can put on a billboard saying that they can take your gall bladder out with a "robot." But surprise, it isn't any more robotic than a hand-held Dyson is versus an iRobot Roomba. It is directly-driven.
Once again, you have to stand up to use it. You have to be in the sterile field after docking. You have to squint at another pitiful 1080p 2D screen. The marginal difference between that work environment and that of traditional open or laparoscopic surgery is not enough to merit standardization, let alone wide industrialization. My bachelor's is in biomedical engineering, so give me what little credit I deserve for that -- Surgibot is cool tech that will attract invited testdrivers but if I go to medical school and go surgery, I'd dismiss it as just a "clever step in a lateral direction."
The remote console paradigm, however, is revolutionary, and now all it needs is further industrialization and one-site refinement.
Three groups have to be appeased: The hospital, the patient, the user. Entertain me why Surgibot appeases the latter. Why should it appease a next-gen military surgeon who needs to perform a procedure remotely? A new 30yo surgical resident?
December is quiet down here in Georgia. Hospitals are busy wrapping up deductible season, and the stock market is selling off to buy presents and write-off taxes. I don't expect any noise until the new year.
Didn't think Titan was so tied to the US petrodollar. If this keeps up and drops the pps further, just another buying opportunity on a phony scare. Lots of panic in the market these past few days.
Second this (anesthesia here, too). There's no need to move the robot platform unless it was originally placed in a poor location. It is probably unsafe to do so, anyways.
If the patient needs to be repositioned from flat to T-Burg or otherwise, safest thing to do is undock. There's no need to sacrifice safety for some minute convenience. There's better risk/reward ratios to improve that SPORT is addressing.
Smaller is always better in the tech industry. SPORT is doing that very nicely. Smaller operating room footprint, smaller sticker price...
Who knows, soon surgeons will be wearing Oculus Rift-like VR headsets from their office desk doing remote surgery on an Android app-run headset console.
Sure, talk to a numbers guy.
Partnerships? Buyout? Titan is intrinsically "second-mover advantage" so the rules are different. What if they want to raise capital when the stock is at $2-4/pps next year after other milestones were met? Does it become a minor blip if you're positioned from $1/pps?
This is the world of biotech. Focus on the product, because the FDA/EC insider work and R&D is out of your control--it is spec. You're making an educated guess based upon how good the product is and what the customer wants many years down the road.
Mgmt wants to make this product happen. How much are they invested in Titan? I've been so focused on the product that I still don't know the other nuances.
What, like a tall stool? It is bedside, not remote. You can't lower the bed enough and access the arms ergonomically without possible sterile field disruption. And because every surgeon wants to sit on this...
http://www.ethos-surgical.com/ethos-surgical-platform/ethos-surgical-platform.html
Which brings another issue. You're still scrubbed in. With sweaty gloves on. The first complaint I hear in the operating room is that the surgeon is too hot and that I have to turn the heat down in the room. Except in the robotic rooms.
It isn't about laziness. It is about preserving one's body for 40 years of practice. Standing for hours is not pleasant. Get your thrombi on.
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I can go on. But to your credit, older practitioners may prefer to remain bedside. We have surgeons that dislike robotics because it does take them away from the field. They are mostly older, soon-to-retire professionals who don't see the time investment in learning ISRG worth the additional patients and better outcomes.
TRXC isn't a bad product. It just isn't market changing for consumers. Robotics is about remote console surgery with a bedside unit. The applications are boundless working from that premise.
I welcome comments about the technology, but I think we don't need to be reminded with comments like that from #18169. It is exhaustive trader talk. Milestones will be met, prototype will be delivered, and institutional investors will follow.
Utimately, products in the healthcare biz are now *highly* consumer driven, for better or worse. Consumers are patients, practitioners, and hospitals/clinics. Surgibot may appease the patient because it can be marketed as "robotic" surgery on a billboard -- you can say "yes" to the question "Will you perform this procedure on me robotically?" But you have to appease practitioners (ergonomics, UX, safety, speed) and hospitals ($$$), too once a monopoly is eliminated.
There may be space for both products in the market. There's lots of $billions involved.
Product is talk for the investor. If you believe in the product, find a technical buying opportunity and stay long. If you don't, then otherwise sell to go look elsewhere for faster money. This longer timeline will offer people a longer period to do both.
Surgibot won't ever catch on because you still have to stand up to use it. If you can't sit at a console, then it is neither a worthy upgrade in tech/industrialization, nor an ergonomic benefit over existing technology. It is just laparoscopic surgery with one incision, with the downsides of a large operating room footprint. TITXF doesn't care, and ISRG really doesn't care.
Take your inferior tech spill elsewhere. We're not interested here.
SPORT will be smaller, cheaper, ergonomic, familiar, and will utilize one incision.
We have a beast CA program at our hospital. No discussion besides what I've offered to the Onco Surgeons and ENTs.
It is my personal judgment that diagnostics are the way to go. I came across LS, read about it, and it made sense from a pharm PoV.
I do anesthesia. I just watch.
Great thoughts. I've had a position in Navidea now for about a year watching this stock correct itself for awhile.
From a practitioners' perspective, the product is spot on. So much research is dedicated to diagnostics now for a reason, and the status quo is only satisfactory.
But of course with any business, it is both product and execution. The latter seems to be fumbling. I think this is a general biotech problem, given all the loops one must jump to sell anything in this business.
Hoping this last short push was the last and that we're seeing turnaround in sentiment at a reasonable share price. One way or another this product will be the standard at some point.
Does same Q procedure demand affect sales? Last quarter is our busiest time of the year in the hospital because of deductible season. Not sure of the shelflife of LS, but if it is radioactive, then the purchase must be near the time of use.
Anesthesia just wants Titan so that when we spill the foley urine bag all over the robot and short it, it is only $600k to replace, not $2.5mil.
I can go on and on. We just moved our ISRG's to larger rooms this year, but last year we somehow managed to have the ISRG bot in the smallest OR and everyone was cramped. Titan? Small rooms, meh, no big deal.
I'm an under 30yo anesthetist and own shares in TITXF. I have a mix of investments now in biotech and oil/gas, as I was an engineer before switching to healthcare. TITXF is not my most speculative position. The fact that it has cash on hand, a steady stepwise pattern, vested and discrete management, and a good list of pros/teaching institutions attracts me.
As for PPS, ISRG doubled about every year starting from '03. That ROI requires solid execution. Pumpers on here that want to see it go faster are either oblivious, or they want a buyout which is probably more likely given Titan is "second to the market" and needs help with industrialization. I just want a good product to come to the market. The rest will fall into place. If I can sell next year at $12 (1000%) from my original investment, I could pay for upcoming medical school in full, but I'm not banking on 1000%. I'm banking on 100% annual, if that.
It is always anesthesia's fault if the ISRG robot doesn't undock fast enough to do a sternotomy. Hopefully Titan can fix this, too.
For their surgery centers, surgeons want a robot that can roll between rooms and have a small footprint, like the size of a bovie cart. Single-site with the capability to put a variety of tools on some arms. That's what SPORT will do.
None of the surgeons at my hospital are interested in products besides ISRG and Titan. ISRG for the hospital stuff -- hearts, thoracic, colons, urology, OB/GYN... ASA 2/3/4's. No use doing a gall bladder on a ISRG machine. Half the docs think it is a waste of time and resources.
Titan for the outpatient OB/GYN, general, and urology crews. ASA 1/2's, less obesity, etc.
Do you get to sit down and rest your legs for 2-3 hours with SurgiBot? Looks like you have to stand up for that job. Surgeons already have enough procedures to do standing up. They want some sit down work at a console so that they can get hemorrhoids like us anesthesia crew.
Order at $1.32 to resupply on more shares never went through, but I've been in since below that. Every panic drop like this weeds out the weak and makes future drops less painful.
Gall bladders are great. We do about a million of them a year here in the US. But if Titan wants to target surgery centers with a <$1mil product, then gen + ob/gyn is minimum to succeed. Otherwise they're pigeon holing. Our surgery center wouldn't get one just for general surgery.
I like the change in outlook. Still meeting sooner milestones but starting to look further down the procedure approval line.
Using this opportunity to pick up more shares. Technically ready to take the next stepwise motion up once a PR appears. Looks at the pattern...
Healthcare coworkers, ISRG reps, and investors all ready to grab a bite of the monopoly.
We're doing umbilical "single-site" hysterectomies with the Si on certain patients, and taking them out through the natural orifice. Sort of a "RAVH", I suppose.
I wouldn't get all uptight about ISRG trying to keep their monopoly. The machine still $2mil and doesn't roll from room to room. Things should get smaller, not remain the same size.
Titan is showing resilience again amidst market uncertainty, but that's been their trend because of the type of product they're trying to being to new markets unaffected by world news. Very contrarian share price.
Now we just need a bit of good news ourself. Share price will come with a good product and commercialization. Believe in this product, sell it to others, and let's nab a piece of that market share! This isn't classic pump/dump.
I like this $1.89-$1.91 base. Just another step on the steady staircase.
The regulations are all different by jurisdiction (states, federal, countries). Medical boards, licensing restrictions, professional org guidelines/protocols...
As technology evolves, however, the legal overhead and threat of litigation should theoretically fall as safety threshold increases. There will be a change in practice that comes with new tech like robotic surgery.
Surgery will be the last type of practice that moves to a supervisory model. 50 years from now, PAs/NPs/residents will be regularly doing endoscopies, making initial incisions...with attending physicians incrementally further away.
Not like this already happens, however...we're regularly putting patients to sleep when the surgeon isn't even on campus yet.
Console robotics is also about ergonomics and remote surgical capability. Sooner or later, first assists, PAs/NPs, residents...all will dock these patients in while the attending surgeon is still on their way to the console...which might be at their office or hell, their home. Don't have to stand up all day for a 25+ year career, either. ISRG addressed these challenges. Titan will further industrialize them.
We added a billion patients to this planet in the past 100 years. ISRG is the first to the market...that $40k 80" TV that only but a few markets can afford. Titan will cut that price to a fraction.
Surgeons want a robot that can be unloaded off of a truck and rolled into an OR, in the event that their own robot is showing a check engine light. Outpatient clinics want to avoid delaying or cancelling a day's work of 12 gall bladders and tubal ligations because of an inevitable error. All these machines have moving parts and voltage drops over silicon chips, producing heat.
Need a quick fix? Call the Titan rep to roll in a temp robot for the week. A 2-hour delay is better than pushing the cases into your vacation week.
The future of robotic surgery is more industrialization (think of the mobility of a lithotripter) and more remote capability (military, overseas lacking specialists). Can't do that with a $2mil monster designed for more complicated cases.
If you're long on Titan, gotta think long. This machine is designed for routine volume.
Hi all, bad day to introduce myself, but long time lurker, anesthesia provider here. Spilled methylene blue on one of our Si's -- hasn't come off yet.
From a strictly technical standpoint, the SP was high w/o news. Even after today's fall, RSI still hangs above 30. So it is a hold for me as I still see Titan as a monopoly buster. Any economics professor will tell you something like an ISRG has peaked. Their legal and labor overhead is too high to offer something reasonably less expensive than their current model line. With reimbursements as they are, outpatient clinics need a mobile unit that doesn't break the bank. This is where Titan slips in to take a portion of that market share.
Long and strong (and sees <$1.70 as an easy technical buying opportunity). Don't let the ISRG trolls run this board. They'll be fortunate to see 520 (omg 20% return) in this overpriced biotech/tech bubble. Titan, on the other hand, offers sustainability, and will weather any sort of bubble as more ISRG shareholders leave to find a new home here.