Intuitive faces down the competition

For decades Intuitive Surgical has been the big beast of robotic surgery, orders of magnitude larger than rival makers of complex, multi-instrument surgical systems. Since late last year, however, it has had to contend with Medtronic, an even bigger group, after Medtronic’s Hugo system was approved in Europe.

“We and other companies will be talking to the same customer about our products, and there’ll be winners and losers,” says Gary Guthart, Intuitive’s chief executive. But many hospitals are so entrenched in what Mr Guthart refers to as Intuitive’s “ecosystem” that it could be hard for competitors, even those as formidable as Medtronic, to break through.