Titan becomes a casualty of the robot wars

The fortunes of the surgical robotics companies CMR Surgical and Titan Medical are strikingly divergent, but even the more successful company still has a great deal to accomplish. Titan’s performance has gone from bad to worse, with repeated delays to the regulatory submission for its Sport product culminating in the group admitting that it does not have the cash to file the device by its most recent deadline of mid-2020. Its shares, already depressed, were down 49% and 52% respectively on the Toronto exchange and Nasdaq yesterday. With the group attempting to raise up to $25m through a share offering its remaining investors might question whether it is worth throwing good money after bad. The UK group CMR, by contrast, has managed to place its first commercial Versius system in a hospital in Pune, India. Further sales – if this term can be applied to CMR’s unusual pricing model – are planned for Europe later this year. CMR has a good deal of money, but contesting a market ruled by Intuitive Surgical, and which will soon see entrants from Medtronic and J&J’s Verb joint venture, will be quite a fight.