Industry-leading robotic surgery company Intuitive Surgical (NSDQ:ISRG) released its 1st quarter 2016 earnings today, seeing significant gains over last year’s Q1 but a little behind its 2015 Q4.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company beat the street on revenue and earnings per share, and saw shares rise approximately 15% in after hours trading.
Intuitive Surgical reported profits of $136.4 million, or $3.54 per share, on sales of $594.5 million for the 3 months ended March 31. That amounts to a 40.6% bottom-line gain as the companies saw sales grow 11.7% compared with the same period last year.
Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, earnings per share were $4.42, a solid 9¢ above what analysts on Wall Street were looking for. Revenue also beat the Street, though by a more narrow $1.4 million.
Adjusted profits and earnings were more than a quarter up over Q1 2015, clocking in at 26.5% and 23.8% respectively. While Intuitive saw a 3.3% slide in shares today before the Q1 release, shares have lifted approximately 12.5% in after hours trading as of 4:40 p.m. EDT.
“Our 1st quarter strength in total procedure growth and general surgery shows continued expansion of high-quality minimally invasive surgical options around the world. We are pleased that da Vinci technology remains a driver for improved surgical outcomes, building value for hospitals, surgeons and their patients and payers,” CEO Gary Guthart said in a prepared release.
In March, Intuitive Surgical released a study comparing the cost of prostate surgery using its da Vinci robot-assisted surgery device with traditional open surgery.
The study, published in the journal Value in Health, assessed hospital costs, payers’ expenditures and societal expenses related to each procedure. The results showed that the robot-assisted surgery delivered shorter hospital stays, lower complication rates and faster returns to work compared with open procedures.
That meant the costs were $1,094 lower for hospitals and $1,451 lower for payers for the robotic procedure; the societal costs were $1,202 lower, according to the study.
