Globus Medical CEO David Demski discussed the company's success in 2018 and where its robotic technology is headed in 2019 during the fourth quarter and full-year earnings call Feb. 21.
Here are five quotes, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:
On whether the future is bright for robotics in spine: "We remain extremely bullish on the potential of computer-assisted surgery, navigation, robotics and imaging to transform the way spine surgery is done. We are highly encouraged by the level of adoption across our installed base. This is a key area of focus and investment, for the value experienced by early adopters is essential to driving the next wave of buyers."
Globus' outlook on its position in the robotic spine market: "The nascent nature of this market combined with our strong balance sheet enables us to compete effectively with competitors who are much larger than we are."
On competition for robotic sales: "We just went head-to-head in a couple of big centers in the west. I'm not going to say where they are, but a clear thumbs up for our technology. [Our competitors] pieced together two things and it's better than what they had. But it's not equivalent to what we're offering."
On the sales rep pipeline: "We had a very strong year in 2018 and the typical rep has a 12-month noncompete. So we will see the same cadence, if you will, into 2019. And yes, we're out of the gates very strong this year, and there is a pretty good pipeline. So I think our technology and some of the disruption that's happening at some of our other competitors is calling people to take interest in Globus and they're liking what they see."
Progress on the KB acquisition: "We don't have any immediate plans to commercialize the Acurate robot, but we're evaluating all of our options with respect to the portfolio. The IP and the engineering team that we acquired from KB is a significant part of our development efforts going forward in terms of our platform and our leadership."