Polaris

Hospitals' CapEx Cautions May Be Limiting Intuitive Surgical Growth, For Now

Mr Johnson your comments about the 1stQtr 2008 sales being below 4thQtr 2007 are grossly misleading

The company did forecast this in January - The 1stQtr is always the slowest Qtr of the year.

Surely a more realistic and valid comparison is with the 1stQtr of last year - a 65% increase - now that's growth in anyone's book.

You are just the last in a long line of analysts that has tried to bring this company down - these include Michael Matson of Wachovia who just prior to the Jan CC claimed that the credit squeeze had hit the company's sales - a claim strongly rejected at the CC then and again last week.


Then we had that numb skull Amit Hasan who claimed just prior to the Jan cc that GYN surgeons were slow to adopt the robot - again not true as we all knew from our contacts with the surgeons and the growing published list of GYN surgeon using the robot. The claim wasfirmly and quickly diosmissed by the company.

Hasan did not even have the guts to posit his question at the CC and used a stooge insted to ask the questions form.

The diriver for this product is not the insurance companies nor even the hospitals - it is the patients themselves. And bear in mind this -most of these patients( prostate and GYNB) are post middle age and usually very well heeled. Do they need medicare?- I think not.

Hospitals will have to adopt the robot if they are to compete in the field. AND a good many of them have more than one machine already.

Sorry laddie your arguments do not wash .