MAKO Surgical: Navigating Robotics in Orthopedics

Article perview reprinted from IN VIVO - June 2009

All but dead a half a dozen years ago, MAKO Surgical is alive and well with an innovative technology platform that both embraces robotics and looks past it. Key to MAKO's strategy: a focus on unicompartmental knee procedures that are extremely difficult to do manually but, company officials hope, are significantly enabled by its robotic arm platform. If company officials are right, MAKO's robotics system could help explode the unicompartmental segment of the knee market without cannibalizing the total knee replacement segment. This year's AAOS meeting was a kind of coming out party for MAKO, whose major challenge now is convincing surgeons that robotics is more than just an intriguing gadget-it's a critical part of the surgical armamentarium. Read more...

MAKO Surgical: Navigating Robotics in Orthopedics

Article perview reprinted from IN VIVO - June 2009

All but dead a half a dozen years ago, MAKO Surgical is alive and well with an innovative technology platform that both embraces robotics and looks past it.

by David Cassak

By all rights, MAKO's predecessor company, Z-KAT should never have survived an extraordinarily difficult adolescence, beset by financing woes, CEO problems, and a strategic alliance with a major orthopedics company that nearly killed it.

But the company did survive and, reborn as MAKO, has begun to gain traction in the marketplace with a strategy that combines an innovative robotics technology and a proprietary implant design.

Key to MAKO's strategy: a focus on unicompartmental knee procedures that are extremely difficult to do manually but, company officials hope, are significantly enabled by its robotic arm platform. If company officials are right, MAKO's robotics system could help explode the unicompartmental segment of the knee market without cannibalizing the total knee replacement segment.

This year's AAOS meeting was a kind of coming out party for MAKO, whose major challenge now is convincing surgeons that robotics is more than just an intriguing gadget—it's a critical part of the surgical armamentarium.

Robotics, particularly as it plays out in health care, is an interesting technology space. All but the most jaded people are captivated by its futuristic, otherworldly feel and reality-bending capabilities. But the imaginative appeal just as often masks more than a small degree of skepticism. Many people, particularly the surgeons whom robotics companies target, see the novel technology as fascinating, but largely irrelevant to what they do day to day and in the here and now. It's kind of like, "How cool. No thanks."

Purchase this article online  as a PDF and receive it immediately via email. Questions? Call (800) 332-2181. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. Subscribe to Start-Up.Companies mentioned in this article:

Acrobot Co. Ltd.

Biomet Inc.

Boston University

BrainLab AG

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Cyberonics Inc.

General Electric Co.

Hansen Medical Inc.

Intuitive Surgical Inc.

Johnson & Johnson

DePuy Inc.

MAKO Surgical Corp.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Medtronic Inc.

Kyphon Inc.

Medtronic Sofamor Danek

New York University

New York University Medical Center

Praxim SA

Royal Philips Electronics NV

Marconi Medical Systems Inc.

St. Jude Medical Inc.

Stryker Corp.

Zimmer Holdings Inc.

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