I know what you’re thinking and no, this has nothing to do with the Presidential Primary in Michigan today. This has to do with our second special focus this week, Cardiac Care.

 Analyst Ed Shenkan of Needham & Company spoke to us briefly about a new technology in Cardiac Care- the robotic surgery platform- that will create a huge new market which started in 2007, and which will continue to grow in 2008.

The robotic surgery platform, first developed by Hansen Medical (HNSN), with competitor Stereotaxis (STXS) following closely behind. The robotic surgery platform has a number of advantages to typical catheter surgery. The robot platform’s control gives a greater ease of manipulation versus a typical catheter, and greater degree of “inter-operator variablity”.

Additionally, with the use of the robotic surgery platform, physicians can perform operations outside of the radiation field in adjacent rooms- which is good, as most busy physicians reach the maximum allowable level of radiation after 10-14 years of practice.

For the full Cardiac Care Report, including full coverage of new and growing technologies in ’08 and stock picks, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Healthcare Stocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.