Dive Brief:

• Johnson & Johnson has launched an electrosurgical generator for use with devices including its Ottava robotic surgical system, the company said Tuesday.
• The Dualto generator powers surgical energy devices used in procedures to cut tissue or control bleeding, inlcuding monopolar, bipolar, ultrasonic and advanced bipolar instruments. J&J said the device’s design allows for up to 46% less footprint versus separate generators.
• The focus on footprint aligns with J&J’s attempts to differentiate its Ottava soft tissue surgical robot, the arms of which are built into the bed so the system takes up less space than rival products.

Dive Insight:

J&J sells instruments such as Harmonic and Enseal that use energy to cut and seal tissue. Ethicon, a J&J unit, markets the Gen11 Generator to power the devices. J&J has designed Dualto to improve on Gen11 through a “modular design and flexible architecture.”

Dualto, which recently received 510(k) clearance, is the first system that allows two surgeons to activate simultaneous energy from one electrosurgical unit, according to J&J. The feature is one of the ways J&J has tried to reduce the footprint of its system.

J&J compared the footprint of Dualto with two energy modules to a stack of four current systems. Dualto took up 46% less footprint, defined as the volume of potential floor or boom space it occupied, than the stacked systems. The footprint reduction fell to 23% when J&J compared Dualto with one energy module to two existing systems stacked. 

Currently, J&J is pitching those benefits to surgeons who perform open and minimally invasive surgery by hand. In the longer term, the reduced footprint could support J&J’s attempt to differentiate its Ottava surgical robot from Intuitive Surgical’s market-leading da Vinci system.

J&J, which received clearance to test Ottava on humans in November, has put the robot’s footprint at the center of its messaging about the system.

Tim Schmid, worldwide chairman of medtech at J&J, discussed what differentiates Ottava and the wider surgical robotics portfolio versus the competition at a TD Cowen investor conference early this month.

“Number one, it is the unified architecture,” Schmid said. “It will be the only robotic four-quadrant soft tissue robotic system with the arms built into the bed. This is a typical sized operating room bed, which is really important around the world where size is a big factor and clutter within the OR can be an issue with some of the competitive brands.”

Dualto forms part of a portfolio of devices linked to Ottava that Schmid sees as another strength of J&J’s offering. J&J has multibillion-dollar portfolios in wound closure and biosurgery, Schmid said, and once the company has a competitive robot it will have “a full portfolio of offerings for surgeons” across open, laparoscopic and robotic surgery.