Intuitive-Fosun (直观医疗), the JV formed by Intuitive Surgical and Fosun Pharmaceutical, announced yesterday that the domestically produced da Vinci Xi surgical platform had hit the market on November 6.
From then on, this prized product, which has become a benchmark for surgical robots across the world, will enter Chinese hospitals as homegrown medical equipment, potentially giving it an edge in price.
The da Vinci system has long dominated the world surgical robot market. It high price and high expenses of related consumables have been a barrier to higher adoption. A da Vinci platform costs between 20 million yuan (US$2.75 million) and 30 million yuan.
China introduced the first da Vinci robot in 2006, purchased then by Chinese PLA General Hospital in Beijing.
The rise of a slew of domestic rivals, including Tinavi (天智航), Edge Medical (精锋医疗), Sagebot (思睿哲) and Shurui (术锐), over the past few years has steadily eroded the domination of da Vinci’s technologies, thanks to their lower prices, often in the range of 4 million to 15 million yuan.
Installations of homegrown surgical robots continue to climb.
cnrobopedia reported earlier that as of Q3 2023, the da Vinci surgical system completed more than 360 installations in China, offering minimally invasive and robot-assisted procedures on more than 420,000 patients.
The domestically built Xi robot, coupled with the R&D, training and wider investment into an innovative medical ecosystem, help to satisfy present and future demand for optimal minimally invasive robot-assisted surgeries and therapies, said Brian Miller, executive vice president and chief digital officer at Intuitive.
