Kobe-based Medicaroid, a 50-50 joint venture between Kawasaki Heavy Industries and medical diagnostics equipment maker Sysmex, plans to begin sales of its hinotori system in Asia outside Japan by March 2024.
The company intends to open overseas offices as soon as this year as it seeks regulatory approvals for the product, used by surgeons to perform minimally invasive procedures. Southeast Asia is one location being considered.
Worldwide, the surgical robot market is projected to more than triple by 2028, rising to US$18.2 billion from US$5.8 billion in 2021, according to market research firm Global Information.
Intuitive Surgical, the US company behind the da Vinci unit, controls 80% of the world market, said the firm Research and Markets.
Medicaroid’s system, priced at ¥210 million (US$1.53 million), is now used in Japan to assist urologic surgeries like prostate cancer removal. Medicaroid has delivered 21 units between the product’s 2020 release and June 2022.
The Japanese company hopes to triple that figure by March, having filed for the system’s approval in gastroenterological and gynecological procedures.
Medicaroid is choosing markets for overseas expansion, said president Kaoru Asano, who is also chief technology officer at Sysmex.
“Some Asian countries accept the same data that we used in our application with Japanese authorities, so we can expect a review decision sooner than in Europe or the US,” Asano said.
After Asia, Medicaroid intends to take its hinotori system to the US and Europe, Asano said. The company targets sales of ¥100 billion by the year ending March 2031. The system is made by Kawasaki Heavy and sold by Sysmex.
As a latecomer, Medicaroid thinks its strengths are surgery data and hinotori’s price, which is below the ¥270 million equivalent of the da Vinci flagship model.
Since American approval was granted in 2000, about 7,100 da Vinci systems have been shipped in 69 countries as of June. Markets outside the US contributed US$1.8 billion, or more than 30%, of Intuitive’s 2021 consolidated sales of US$5.7 billion.
A lower price could help Medicaroid compete for demand from hospitals that need to install multiple systems for robot-assisted surgery. The key question is whether Medicaroid can meet the needs of hospitals abroad to diversify suppliers and keep installation costs down, said Takahiro Mori, senior analyst at Mizuho Securities.
Medicaroid lags Intuitive Surgical in the applications for its robots. The hinotori system can handle eight types of surgeries, while the da Vinci system can perform about 70 worldwide.