I have been following this stock for the past two years when they had a surgical robotic system that was in the FDA approavl process. What was interesting was that this was the only competition to the Big Daddy in this space ISRG. THE FDA approval never came and the company has struggled in the last 2 years but as they say you never lose till you quit and they have finally got approval from the FDA yesterday though for another system called Senhance and not the original Surgibot. According to them and some analysts this system is a lot more effective that ISRG because its smaller and surgeons can do bedside surgeries instead of in front of a console . We dont know yet how good they are or the time it takes to build traction but I would suggest you look it up as I think they have a very good chance if giving ISRG a run for the money for the next phase this growing area.
Here is an excellent article comparing TRXC’s robot (which actually was their second choice and not what they considered to be their “flagship” robot) with daVinci from ISRG.
ISRG is also bringing out what is expected to be a lower cost model, thus decreasing any pricing advantage that the new robot may have.
daVinci is also working on the same haptic and eye technology. All in all, when you have a complicated product like the daVinci robots that have so embedded themselves into the entire market, the only way that this robot gains any traction at all is to find some niche that ISRG’s products are underserving and TRXC’s robot can better serve. Does it exist? I don’t know, just taking a first look.
From a fundamental perspective this is the issue with TRXC. Is there a niche market/procedure underserved that TRXC can better serve with enough improvement to choose a product other than a ISRG product?
Good article but I think given this market will grow more than two fold there is enough opportunities to grab market share for TRXC . Yes they have lost two years but I am not sure they will have as much difficulty as ISRG had when they were the pioneers. Now its about how well they execute their sales strategy and compete on the price points with a lower grade ISRG version.