French surgical robotics firm Medtech Innovative Surgical Technology said this month it sold 10 ROSA robotic surgical systems during its fiscal 3rd quarter of 2016, with 7 going to the U.S., 2 in China and 1 in France.
That brings the total number of ROSA units in use globally up to 69, Medtech marketing director Teresa Prego told MassDevice.com in an interview, with 31 of those in the U.S. Medtech produces 2 models on the ROSA platform – the Brain and Spine units – which are used for minimally invasive brain and spine surgeries.
Major facilities in the U.S., such as New York’s Mt. Sinai, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s and Yale’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center were among those to pick up units from Medtech in the last quarter, according to a press release..
ROSA brain and spine units check in at a cost below that of a da Vinci unit from Intuitive Surgical (NSDQ:ISRG), which can run in the millions, at around $700,000. And though the units may be priced competitively against da Vinci units, Intuitive Surgical isn’t a major competitor for Medtech, Prego told us. The status quo is.
“One of our isn’t truly a competitor, but is the status quo. I think surgeons are accustomed to performing surgery in a way they were trained. So convincing those surgeons that there’s a better way to do to the surgery, or a more reproducible way that can create greater accuracy is an education effort,” Prego said.
And beating the status quo is more about educating surgeons and operators on the advantages of robotic surgery, Prego said. The strength of the ROSA platform is in reproducibility and freedom from fatigue and manual-surgery related errors, she added.
“For us it’s really the strength of the robot, the ability to mimic the human arm and provide the appropriate trajectory and hold that trajectory throughout the surgery,” Prego said. “That ability to maintain the correct trajectory according to the plan, because there’s a robotic arm assisting, surgeon fatigue or the error that can happen when a procedure is performed manually versus robotically, that is a differentiation.”
The company currently has CE Mark clearance in the European Union for the brain and spine, and is looking to expand into additional markets in Japan and China, Prego said.
In January, Medtech said it won FDA 510(k) clearance for its ROSA spine robot. The ROSA brain platform won approval with the FDA for use with brain surgeries in 2012, and 27 systems are currently installed in American facilities, the company said.
