Stryker Invests About $400 Million in CMR Surgical and Gains Exclusive U.S. Rights to Versius Robot

Stryker is entering soft-tissue surgical robotics through a major investment in Cambridge, U.K.-based CMR Surgical.

Stryker said this week it has invested about $400 million into CMR Surgical, with an exclusive option to acquire the company's remaining equity. It also secured an exclusive U.S. commercial agency agreement for the Versius portfolio.

CMR says Versius is compact and modular, so it does not require a dedicated operating room, and supports general, colorectal, urology, gynecology and thoracic surgery. The company says the robot has been adopted in hospitals across more than 30 countries and used in 45,000 cases worldwide. The Versius Plus system has FDA 510(k) clearance for cholecystectomy, and CMR has filed a 510(k) submission for benign gynecological indications.

Strategy

Andy Pierce, Stryker's group president of medsurg and neurotechnology, called soft-tissue robotics a high-growth adjacency and a natural extension of Stryker's strengths in endoscopy, visualization and enabling technologies. Company statements and usage figures in this article are the companies' own claims.