Medtronic gave investors a glimpse Tuesday of its robotically assisted surgical system, a long-awaited set of products expected to debut in about two years.
The system, known as the Hugo RAS (for robotic-assisted surgery), will be tested in clinical trials in the United States and elsewhere. Medtronic intends to get it to the market in the U.S. through the Food and Drug Administration's 501(k) process, which typically requires less evidence than the highest-risk medical devices.
The Hugo is a modular system, meaning it has several free-standing components that can be adapted to the needs of a particular patient or hospital floor, and upgraded as technology evolves.
It will include up to four robotic arms tipped with Medtronic surgical tools. But each arm is mounted on its own cart and can be wheeled to a different room for other surgeries, if needed.
The surgeon using the device could use special 3-D glasses to help visualize the action. It wasn't clear Tuesday how the surgeon controls the device or how much initiative the robot takes during a procedure. A video feed of the demonstration procedure wasn't broadcast publicly.
The system is designed to take advantage of the fact that Medtronic's surgical tools and supplies are already familiar to many of the doctors who would deploy them robotically.
"We understand surgery as well as any company on the planet, and that is what we bring to the table," Bob White, president of Medtronic's minimally invasive therapies group, said Tuesday to investment analysts who saw the Hugo system remove a prostate from a cadaver at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.
Though Tuesday's event was meant to familiarize insiders with the technology, much of the discussion during the three-hour event focused on marketing.
