Surgical Robotics Technology
Johnson & Johnson has announced that it will take its time with its planned general surgery robot by not following a 510(k) clearance pathway – with the goal now to start first-in-human studies with the system by Q3 2020.
This was one of the key announcements made during Johnson & Johnson’s quarterly earnings call yesterday.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, J&J had planned towards some kind of robotic surgery announcement in May. The global medical technology leader has been working on combining the technologies of $3.4 billion acquisition Auris Health with the technologies that came out of its previous Verb Surgical and Verily Life Sciences collaboration.
Robot-assisted surgery is currently a hot area in medtech – with J&J, Medtronic and others seeking to take on Intuitive Surgical – the current market leader in this space.
“We continue to be impressed by the technology advancements we’re seeing with both the Verb and Verily and the Auris combination. Our teams are making very good progress as we speak. … And we’ll be providing you some further updates regarding a more focused digital review in the coming months,” J&J CEO Alex Gorsky said during the quarterly earnings call.
