A report by Allied Market Research, the global surgical robotics market was valued at USD 56.3M in 2017 and is expected to reach USD 98.7B by 2024, showing a CAGR of 8.5% during the period of 2017-2024.
In terms of earliest priority data, patent activity in Robotic Surgery saw increasing patent filings from 2009-2013 with a peak observed in 2013. The increase in patent activity during the above periods may be attributed to increased adoption of the technology.
According to a report from Giri, et. al., da Vinci surgical robot systems procedures increased significantly from 2008-2010. The decline in patent activity in 2014 appear to be consistent with the declining sales of the da Vinci systems. Operating costs are steep with an addition of maintenance cost amounting to 170,000 USD. According to a report from Modern Healthcare, to make buying a da Vinci financially viable, hospitals generally need to perform 150 to 300 procedures annually for six years to offset the upfront and ongoing costs of acquiring it.
Top Players
Medical device companies form the majority of the top players in the robotics surgery field with Intuitive Surgical having the most number of patents and patent applications. This may be expected since Intuitive Surgical is the maker of da Vinci surgical system which was one of the first robot-assisted, minimally invasive surgical systems cleared by the FDA. da Vinci Surgical Systems has been around since 1999, and virtually has no competition yet.
In this issue of ParolaNEWS, we looked at the patenting activity in the field of surgical robotics from 2009-2019. Find out which companies are leading in various technology areas within the field and which startups are making strides in the industry.
