Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG)
Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
January 21, 2010 4:30 p.m. ET

Executives

Benjamin Gong – Vice President of Finance
Lonnie M. Smith – Chairman of the Board
Gary S. Guthart – President, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Operating Officer
Marshall L. Mohr – Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Aleks Cukic – Vice President of Strategic Planning

Analysts

David Lewis – Morgan Stanley
Matthew O''Brien – William Blair & Company LLC
Tao Levy – Deutsche Bank
Tycho Peterson – JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Rick Wise – Leerink Swann & Company
Vincent Ricci – Wells Fargo Securities
Sameer Harish – Needham & Company

Presentation

Operator

Welcome and thank you all for standing by. At this time, I would like to inform all participants you will be on a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of today''s conference call. I would also like to inform all parties that today''s conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ben Gong, Vice President of Finance. Thank you. Sir, you may begin.

Benjamin Gong

Good afternoon and welcome to Intuitive Surgical''s fourth quarter conference call. With me today we have Gary Guthart, our President and CEO; Marshall Mohr, our Chief Financial Officer; Aleks Cukic, our Vice President of Strategic Planning; and Lonnie Smith, our Chairman of the Board.

Before we begin, I would like to inform you that comments mentioned on today''s call may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company''s Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

Please note that this conference call will be available for audio replay on our website at intuitivesurgical.com on the “Audio Archives” section under our “Investor Relations” page. In addition, today''s press release has been posted to our website.

Today''s format will consist of providing you with highlights of our fourth quarter results as described in our press release announced earlier today, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Gary will present the quarter''s business and operational highlights. Marshall will provide a review of our fourth quarter and annual financial results. Aleks will discuss marketing and clinical highlights, then I will provide a financial forecast for 2010, and finally, we will host a question-and-answer session.

Before we turn it over to Gary, Lonnie would like to provide some introductory remarks.

Lonnie M. Smith

Thank you, Ben. I''d like to take a moment to acknowledge the transition that took place on January 1st. On that date, Gary Guthart became President and CEO of the company.

It has been my privilege to serve as CEO of Intuitive Surgical for the last 13 years and it''s been a great personal blessing to work with so many gifted and dedicated people. I sincerely thank all those past and present who have helped to build this wonderful company, extraordinary men and women who can see, design, build, sales, service and support our effort to great products that take surgery beyond the limits of the human hands and pioneered their application to new surgical procedures, the surgeons who are instrumentally in those pioneering efforts, the hospital administrators who are willing to invest in a new technology with a fledgling company, the patients who trust us and their surgeons to help them and to do no harm in the process and finally, the early investors who provided the funding that made it possible.

I truly believe that we are still in early stages of the evolution of this technology and its application to medicine. I look forward to my new role in supporting Gary and the entire Intuitive team as I continue to advance the state of the art of our technology, delivering extraordinary value to patients, surgeons, hospitals and our investors.