[richk449]

Thanks for the informative reply. Your comment rings true to me, since I am aware of other medical systems that are marketing tools.

I have questions though.

Is the davinci amazing? I have heard that it is.

Why doesn’t someone else make a similar product? Is there technology that is hard to replicate?

[iancmceachern]

It's totally amazing. It's like a space shuttle. It's the culmination of decades if investment and decades of some of the smartest people in robotics working tirelessly. It's a modern marvel.

Others have been trying for years. The latest big player is J&J who faces an existential threat due to robotic surgery overtaking conventional surgery, and therefore one of J&J/Ethicons core business. They bought Verb and Auris and a few other smaller companies in the space and smashed them together. There are others in the space trying to do the same.

Ultimately Intuitive has a pretty big moat. They have a lot on the technical/IP side, but also just business wise. These hospitals and surgery centers pay millions for a robot, then need to keep it busy doing cases for several years to pay it off. There is a lot of risk and not really any clear advantages to changing to a new challenger. That new challenger would need to demonstrate some key advantage, which they have yet to do.

It's hard, its akin to trying to compete with space x or similar, starting now.