Bristol, I'm with you on all of these!
As for ballparking the programmer man-hours, we could do another little math experiment, just for fun. If we could find/figure out their monthly costs for development (maybe assume some reasonable percentage of their overall burn rate), we should be able to get within some moderate margin of error.
From the June fundraising efforts, they were hoping for US $17M to get to the end of the year? (please feel free to update/correct figures as you see fit). So a little under $3M per month for burn rate? They have their own salaries, overhead, rent, etc. for probably the better part of a third of that... as a development stage company, 2/3 is probably a reasonable figure for how much is going toward development, so $2M/month. Most or all development is being contracted out, so lop off 20% for markup/profit by the contractors; down to $1.6M. Of that, as much as half to 2/3 could be going toward supplies, project management, QA, documentation, and other overhead. Let's say we're down to $700K per month on development engineering staff. A chunk of that is going to hardware development (relocating the foot pedal assembly, camera upgrades, maybe refining end effectors and gearing up for increased number of indications)... How does $350K/month sound for that, leaving $350K for software developers? Contracting software development folks for medical devices tends to average somewhere around $100 to $120/hour. Maybe in the ballpark of 3,000 hours per month of software developers' time. With some OT on a time-sensitive program, close to 200 hours per engineer, per month, means 15 full time software engineers. Given the nature and scope of the work, I think it's a reasonable guesstimate! It is a process...
I thought somewhere there was an indication that they are still working on end effectors with another organization so I don't think they have that nailed down for a "design freeze" level of stability.
As for official FDA paperwork, I suspect there isn't that much going on, but they reported that they are maintaining some relationship with the FDA to ensure they are heading in the right direction. The big push will presumably be later in the clinical trials next year.
I'd love to see a nice, prominent feature article any time at all, and the video could maybe wait until end effectors are optimized; I would imaging the surgeons who are interested in using SPORT want to see latest/greatest, and they deserve to see the best representation of what will ultimately be available to them. They won't always be making the actual purchase decision but they will always be heavily influencing it with hospital administration. We need them to really really want SPORT, and a great video will definitely stir interest. The video should probably also have surgeon commentary to tout the advantages of SPORT over other offerings, while simultaneously demonstrating the same features in the video.
One other thing I would REALLY like to see is a simple update to the Titan web site. Even the Board of Directors hasn't been updated. Does the vote for the new directors not take effect immediately? The latest "What's New?" entry is Mr. Barker's letter from November (I'd love to see another communication from them to update the items discussed in THAT letter). And the Leadership team page gives nice summaries of what everyone used to do, but I also want to know what they are doing for Titan! Maybe it is a case of "familiarity breeds contempt" but nearly every day I hop onto the Titan site and sigh with disappointment that it remains the same as the day before.
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