Evercore says Intuitive Surgical outperformance tied to new system speculation

Commenting on why shares of Intuitive Surgical are outperforming today despite not having a booth tour at the upcoming Society of Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, or SAGES, meeting that starts on March 29, Evercore ISI analyst Vijay Kumar said the performance can be attributed to expectations for a new system launch possibly in FY24 after the Federal Communications Commission recently approved some form of "equipment" and Intuitive asked for the exhibit to be removed from public inspection. Specifically, Intuitive asked for the User Manual for "IS5000" to be removed from public inspection, said the firm, which noted that the FCC approved the da Vinci Xi in November 2013, prior to FDA approval in early 2014 and that the product code for da Vinci Xi is "IS4000." The firm, which said it doesn’t expect to hear anything from Intuitive at SAGES, has an In Line rating and $215 price target on the shares.