Reiza then gave general updates on Titan
Some comments I took out of his discussion:
- Initiation of tissue testing
- Titan, led by Dr. Fowler, has begun the clinical/pre-clinical regulatory approval process with the FDA and the notified bodies for Titan’s countries of choice in the EU
- Next year, plans to initiate outside US approval process and commercial launch (lead by Hargrove, given his background with JNJ) and is well underway. On track to submit the FDA 510(k) in the 2nd half of 2015 and have a product done and ready to go to market in the US
Moved on to discussing the competition:
Transenterix Surgibot
- Inferior vision system (2D glasses)
- Much less dexterity
- No longer a computerized console
- Worse ergonomics (among other things, users must stand)
- Cost should be about the same as SPORT, but management believes it offers a lot less value proposition
- Targeting end of 2015 launch
Intuitive Surgical da Vinci SP (single-port)
- Announced April 11th, 2014 the launch of the unit – quite an unusual announcement as historically, the customer has only ever known when the product has been for sale
- They just went through a bad quarter, sales were down 24%
- Timeline for commercialization is at least a year from now
- The very small size of the camera raises questions whether it was deliver comparable vision to its MP unit
- Will it be compatible with older models and technology?
- Will probably cost around $2 million / unit
