Siemens Healthineers: the robotic doctor won’t see you now
The idea is appealing: remote-controlled robots operating with clinical precision to minimise trauma. But human physicians perform best unaided during heart procedures such as stent implants, according to Siemens Healthineers.
The German medical equipment maker is powering down a business acquired in 2019 through a $1.1bn takeover of US group Corindus.
Time has not been on the side of heart surgery robots. Covid made it difficult for Siemens Healthineers staff to get into hospitals to carry out training. Once restrictions eased, the medical advantages of using remote-controlled robots proved too modest to build a sizeable business.
The writedown added to the weakness of second-quarter results at the group, spun out of the Siemens industrial conglomerate in 2018. Adjusted earnings fell 30 per cent to €681mn. The diagnostics division suffered from shrinking demand for Covid-19 tests.
Revenue dropped 2.5 per cent on a comparable basis to €5.3bn. Stripping out rapid antigen Covid tests, revenues rose 11 per cent, helped by an imaging division and the US Varian oncology business it bought in 2021.
Withdrawing from heart surgery robotics will bolster the margins of the advanced therapies division, the smallest unit by revenue.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Faqs of Insurances
