Intuitive Surgical, Inc. was founded in 1995. We are a Delaware corporation with
our corporate headquarters located at 1266 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, California 94086.
Our telephone number is (408) 523-2100, and our website address is www.intuitivesurgical.com
. In this report, “Intuitive Surgical,” “we,” “us,”
and “our” refer to Intuitive Surgical, Inc. and its subsidiaries.
Intuitive®, da Vinci®, da Vinci®S™, TilePro™, Solo Surgery™,
EndoWrist®, InSite®, AESOP®, HERMES®, ZEUS®, SOCRATES™
and Navigator™ are trademarks of Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
We design, manufacture and market the da Vinci Surgical Systems, which are
advanced surgical systems that we believe, represent a new generation of surgery.
We believe that this new generation of surgery, which we call da Vinci surgery,
is a revolutionary advancement similar in scope to previous generations of surgery—open
surgery and minimally invasive surgery, or MIS. Our da Vinci Surgical Systems
consist of a surgeon’s console, a patient-side cart, a high performance
vision system and proprietary “wristed” instruments and surgical
accessories. By placing computer-enhanced technology between the surgeon and
patient, we believe that our systems enable surgeons to perform advanced MIS
in a manner never before experienced. The da Vinci Surgical System controls
Intuitive Surgical endoscopic instruments, including rigid endoscopes, blunt
and sharp endoscopic dissectors, scissors, scalpels, forceps/pickups, needle
holders, endoscopic retractors, electrocautery, ultrasonic cutters, and accessories
during a wide range of surgical procedures. The da Vinci Surgical System seamlessly
translates the surgeon’s natural hand movements on instrument controls
at the console into corresponding micro-movements of instruments positioned
inside the patient through small puncture incisions, or ports. Our da Vinci
Surgical System provides the surgeon with the intuitive control, range of motion,
fine tissue manipulation capability and 3-D vision characteristic of open surgery,
while simultaneously allowing the surgeon to work through the small ports of
MIS.
In March 1997, surgeons using an early prototype of our technology successfully
performed the first da Vinci surgery on humans. In the second quarter of 1999,
we began selling da Vinci products and services outside the United States. In
July 2000, we obtained clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) to market our products in the United States for use in General laparoscopic
procedures.
Our goal is to establish da Vinci surgery as the standard approach for complex
surgical procedures, displacing both open surgical technique and standard MIS
within this segment. We intend to accomplish this objective both by pioneering
new types of endoscopic surgery and by making existing MIS procedures easier,
safer and more cost-effective than the alternative methods. Our strategy is
to broaden the number of procedures performed using the da Vinci Surgical System
and to educate surgeons, hospitals and patients as to the benefits of da Vinci
surgery.
Sales and Customer Support
We market our products through a direct sales force in the United States and
parts of Europe. We also market our products outside the United States through
distributors. Our direct sales force is comprised of sales managers, clinical
sales representatives, training specialists, and technical service representatives.
Sales activities include educating surgeons and hospital staff across multiple
surgical specialties on the advantages of da Vinci surgery and the clinical
applications that our technology enables. We also train our sales force to educate
hospital management on the potential benefits of adopting our technology, including
the potential for increased local market share that may result from offering
da Vinci surgery. Once a hospital has installed a da Vinci Surgical System,
our clinical sales representatives help drive the utilization of the system,
and our technical service representatives provide service and maintenance for
the system.
Competition
We consider our primary competition to be existing open surgery, MIS, drug
therapies, radiation treatment and emerging interventional surgical approaches.
Our success depends in part on convincing hospitals, surgeons and patients that
the demonstrated benefits associated with da Vinci surgery are superior to other
techniques. We also face competition from several companies that are developing
new approaches and products for the MIS market. Because many of these developments
are aimed at MIS, we believe that our da Vinci Surgical System may actually
prove complementary to these new technologies.
In addition, a limited number of companies are using or planning to use robots
and computers in surgery, including Armstrong Healthcare Ltd., Hitachi Ltd.,
MicroDexterity Systems, Inc., Sinters SA, Terumo Medical Corporation, and Toshiba,
Inc. Our revenues may be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and
market products that are more effective or less expensive than our products.