The Next Frontier of Surgery

The latest advancements in technology and connectivity have helped to make life better and safer in areas like transportation. As a parent of driving-age children, I’m grateful for the connected systems in our cars that warn us when we are in danger of a collision, when our car needs servicing and help to guide us along our route with ease. We’re looking to disrupt medical innovation in a similar way to change the game for patients, doctors and nurses, and healthcare systems.

Our vision is a new era of digital surgery that will simplify procedures, drive efficiency, reduce complications and ultimately make surgery safer. We are building a digital ecosystem that combines best-in-class robotics, advanced instrumentation, and uses data and insights to connect patients and their healthcare providers before, during and after a procedure. This connected platform will personalize and improve patient outcomes in three important ways:

• Empowering patients to take charge of their health by helping them connect with healthcare providers throughout their journey.  
• Helping surgeons optimize patient and procedure selection, conduct procedures consistently and efficiently, and access resources to advance their skills.
• Enabling healthcare systems to deliver more consistent, accurate, and reproducible procedures, all while managing costs.

Today is an exciting step towards this future as we welcome Auris Health, a global pioneer in robotics, to J&J. The visionaries at Auris share our passion for making a profound impact on patients, including Dr. Fred Moll, founder of Auris and Intuitive Surgical, and a trailblazer in the field of surgical robotics.

The addition of Auris’ Monarch? platform will play an important role in J&J’s Lung Cancer Initiative to prevent, intercept and cure this disease, which is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Lung cancer is dangerous and deadly because it remains quiet for so long. To beat it, we need to find it and extract it early. With the addition of Monarch, we are well positioned to diagnose and treat hard to reach lung lesions with more precision than ever before. While our first focus is on lung cancer, the innovation from Auris will help us reimagine care for other diseases.

Auris complements the groundbreaking work we have underway to advance digital surgery to serve a wide range of unmet patient needs, including our recent acquisition of Orthotaxy and their platform in orthopaedics, and our collaboration with Verily – Verb Surgical – where together we are developing a digital surgery platform that combines advanced visualization, market-leading instruments, data analytics and connectivity.

We revolutionized surgery 130 years ago when J&J introduced the first sterile surgical dressings and sutures. Our proud lineage continues today as we usher in the future of surgery to restore, enhance and save the lives of more people.