Johnson & Johnson’s robotics unit Verb Surgical aims for end-of-year unveiling

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) expects its Verb Surgical robot-assisted surgery business to move from concept to product design by the end of the year, company officials said this week as they updated investors on their plans for the world’s largest medical device business.

Gary Pruden, chairman of J&J’s $25.1 billion medical device division, said Verb Surgical expects to log “an important milestone at the end of the year, when we transition from concept development to full product development,” adding that more details on the system’s design would be revealed at that point.

Ethicon chairman Michael del Prado unveiled a few details, saying the Verb device aims to offer a smaller physical footprint than existing robot-assisted surgery systems, for procedures in tough-to-reach portions of the anatomy – “areas where the penetration of minimally invasive surgery has not been as good as the other areas,” he said.

“The sweet spot for really transforming surgery is in areas where it’s deep, it’s confined, it’s inaccessible,” del Prado said. “So this is where we believe that we’re the better surgical platform robotics capabilities that we will be able to penetrate.”

Pruden said the company expects the medical device business to grow at a 4% to 6% clip over the next 5 years.

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