By Angela Palumbo
Intuitive Surgical stock was climbing Wednesday after the company provided positive updates on a new surgical robot and posted fourth-quarter earnings that impressed Wall Street.
Intuitive said on its fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday that it has submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration for its new surgical robot, the Da Vinci 5.
Citi analyst Joanne Wuensch said the announcement was the highlight of the evening and showed that the company is “heralding in another generation of robotic surgery.” She increased her price target on the stock to $428 from $390 while maintaining her Buy rating.
For the fourth quarter, Intuitive reported earnings of $1.60 a share, which beat analysts’ estimates of $1.48 a share and rose from last year’s $1.23 a share. Revenue for the quarter was $1.93 billion, which was above last year’s $1.66 billion and in-line with what Intuitive said it expected when the company provided preliminary revenue estimates on Jan. 9. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected revenue of $1.89 billion.
Revenue growth was led by an increase in the installment of surgical systems. Worldwide da Vinci procedures grew about 21% from the fourth quarter of 2022. Intuitive also said the latest fourth quarter didn’t reflect any significant impacts from Covid-19. That’s a big change from the past when the company has felt adverse impacts from the virus.
“In our view, ISRG is one of the highest quality growth stories in large-cap MedTech and we expect ISRG will remain the innovation leader within an expanding (still underpenetrated) and rapidly growing robotic surgery category for years to come,” Truist Securities analyst Richard Newitter wrote in a research note. He increased his price target to $435 from $390 and maintained his Buy rating on the stock.
Shares of Intuitive were climbing 4.5% in premarket trading to $388. Coming into the session, the stock has jumped 52% over the last 12 months.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com