Just saw Intuitive's new stapler on two cases. Took the dvc, nice staple line and no bleeding. Other case was LAR, surgeon air tested the stump prior to reconnecting to build confidence. No bubbles. Still no vascular load yet, but I have a lot of business that is in serious trouble. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Thank you for your concern. Here at Covidien, we maintain our long-standing view that robotic surgery, while beneficial in some cases, is a fad and not a threat to our core business. Sure, daVinci has all but wiped out our GYN vessel sealing business, but that was all luck and marketing hype. GYN surgeons are soft and impressionable. Stapling is safe. Real surgeons will never switch to a two-row load, that would go against everything WE have taught them about endomechanical stapling. It just wouldn't make sense. Existing clinical evidence shows no patient benefit vs. laparoscopy, costs are through the roof and insurers are catching on to the scam. It's only a matter of time before our customers turn their back on the hundreds of millions of dollars they have invested in existing daVinci systems. Yep, any day now the jig will be up. Just you wait, it's gonna be awesome. ISRG is gonna be a penny stock. In the meantime, just repeat after me: Stapling is safe. Stapling is safe. Stapling is safe....
no intuitive can compete with our blinkity blink blink had held robotic stapling device...cost a couple grand throw it in the sterilizer then toss it in the trash....brilliant as are all of the ct asswipes
man, you sound like you speak with conviction and want to truly believe your own bs. Reality will soon set in. Let me educate you a bit: The robot is not more expensive, average cost for disposables for a case is about 750 dollars. You next rebuttal is probably yeah but the robot cost 2 million. Wrong again. It has gone down in price and if you compare the cost of a robot to all the instruments, generators, towers etc. needed to run a room you would not be all that far apart. To your point about marketing hype, I am not sure the last time I saw a fully intracorporeal LAR with lower length of stay, lower complication rates, and better tumor margins. Marketing hype you say? Patients actullay ask for robotic surgery and tell all their friends after they have had this innovative type of procedure, nobody asks for a powered piece of crap no one can figure out how to use with tri-staple....... As for the robotic stapler.....it works....and works very well. When the vascualr load comes out thoracic (which by the way is quickly going robotic in case you have not noticed) will be gone, and so will half the J&J and Covidien sales forces. But hey.....stapling is safe.......stapling is safe.
Hey Dummy, the post that you are referencing was meant to be a sarcastic post. Stop getting all p$ssy hurt.
You are truly a kool-aid drinking nimrod. I don't know who is in greater denial, Covidien for discounting the impact robotics is having on our business, or Intuitive reps who don't recognize that their best days are behind them.
I think everyone is somewhat delusional. Intuitive just layed off 300+ reps. Covidien has been in "restructuring" mode for almost 2 yrs. Ethicon has layed off a boatload of their reps in the past 2 yrs as well (at least in my territory and what I've been hearing elsewhere....) Not that anyone gives a shit about sutures or trocars, but that market is probably 93-95% commoditized and the companies like Applied Medical whose livelihood depend on those products are feeling it big time due to reprocessing. The bottom line is, the industry as a whole is going in the crapper and it's becoming tougher and tougher to make $$$$ let alone keep ur job. Stay thirsty my friends
Fine, now what do you do? If you don't have the business acumen to proactively gain new business with competitive clinicians not utilizing the robotic platform, then you deserve to lose your ass on this. I'm not a manager, either.
Sell Covidien short since 50% of what was Surgical Devices was the egia franchise. Guessing Cov. has a $700 million target on them. That is a lot of business acumen hot shot.
Replacing business lost to robotics with "competitive clinicians" may solve your immediate problem, but it's not an effective growth strategy in the long run. The endo stapling market is pretty much a zero sum game. Every time a surgeon switches to robotic stapling, the "pie" gets a little smaller for COV and EES. I don't care how much "business acumen" or "intellectual horsepower" you have, you can only sell around it for so long.
