J&J Just Built a Robot That Hides Under the Operating Table

For complex abdominal surgeries that require working in multiple areas of the body, this could be a genuine game-changer.

The Long, Expensive Road to This Moment

OTTAVA's origin story starts in 2015, when J&J's surgical division Ethicon teamed up with Verily (Google's life sciences arm) to form a joint venture called Verb Surgical. The goal: build a next-generation surgical robot infused with digital intelligence.

In 2019, J&J went on a spending spree. It acquired Auris Health, a robotics company founded by the co-creator of the da Vinci system itself, in a multibillion-dollar deal. Then it bought out Verily's stake in Verb, taking full control. Internally, J&J reportedly pitted the two teams against each other in a competition dubbed "Project Manhattan." Auris' iPlatform design won, though J&J ultimately adopted Verb's bed-based architecture in a subsequent strategic decision.

That decision came with consequences. A Delaware court later awarded more than $1 billion in damages to Auris investors who argued J&J had effectively abandoned their technology. And in 2021, J&J disclosed a $900 million R&D charge tied to a two-year delay in OTTAVA's development, caused by technical challenges and COVID-related supply chain problems.

By the time OTTAVA reached its first human patient in early 2025 at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, J&J had been working on this for a full decade.

What the FDA Review Covers

The De Novo pathway is reserved for genuinely novel devices that don't fit neatly into existing FDA categories. Think of it as the FDA saying, "We've never seen anything quite like this, so we're creating a brand-new classification for it." That's significant because if authorized, OTTAVA would become the reference device for its category. Any future competitor building a similar table-integrated surgical robot could potentially use OTTAVA as a regulatory benchmark, streamlining their own path to market.

J&J has submitted OTTAVA for general surgery procedures in the upper abdomen, including gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, small bowel resection, and hiatal hernia repair. The clinical evidence came from a 30-patient study called FORTE, which focused on gastric bypass procedures. Every single case was completed robotically with zero conversions to non-robotic approaches.

A separate clinical trial for inguinal (groin) hernia repair is still ongoing, which could broaden OTTAVA's indication set further.

Wall Street Says: Cool, But Don't Panic (Yet)

Analyst reaction has been cautiously positive. Stifel's Rick Wise noted that OTTAVA's integrated table motion is unique in surgical robotics and called the De Novo submission a sign of J&J's confidence. But he also emphasized that Intuitive's "broad and deep ecosystem" gives it substantial insulation against new entrants.

BofA Securities recently raised J&J's price target to $263 from $254.

The general read from the Street: this is a multi-year story, not a quarter-to-quarter catalyst. J&J plans a phased launch with "select customers" in the U.S. before expanding to more hospitals and geographies. An investor call scheduled for August 3, 2026 should provide the first real details on commercial targets and pricing.

The Three-Player Game

OTTAVA's progress means the U.S. soft tissue robotic surgery market could soon have three major players for the first time: Intuitive (da Vinci), Medtronic (Hugo, recently cleared for urologic procedures), and J&J (OTTAVA). CMR Surgical's Versius adds a fourth internationally.

This matters beyond any single company. When hospitals had only one option, Intuitive could charge premium prices with limited negotiation. With three credible alternatives, expect more flexible pricing models (leasing, per-procedure fees), more aggressive innovation cycles, and broader adoption of robotic surgery in hospitals that previously couldn't justify the cost.

The robotic surgery market is one of the fastest-growing segments in medical technology. OTTAVA's arrival doesn't shrink the pie; it makes the pie bigger. More competition means more hospitals adopt robotics, which means more procedures, which means the entire market expands.

J&J spent a decade, weathered billion-dollar lawsuits, absorbed a $900 million write-down, and outlasted a pandemic to get here. The robot hides under the table, but J&J's ambitions in surgical robotics are anything but hidden.

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