Surgical Robots: Between Carnival and Ebb Tide, Industry Reshuffling Has Arrived

This wave of intensive IPO spree is essentially a key layout for enterprises to strive for their own survival and growth.

Since 2026, the surgical robot industry has been swinging between carnival and ebb tide

On the one hand, in June alone, three consecutive enterprises made progress in their IPOs. On June 30, TrueHealth Medical was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, winning the title of "the first share of percutaneous puncture surgical robot". The company's share price rose by more than 200% on the first day of listing, and its market value exceeded HK$14 billion in one fell swoop; in the same week, the A-share IPO applications of Surui Robot and Huake Jingzhun were successively accepted.

From Hong Kong Stock Exchange's 18A rules to the A-share market, enterprises are queuing up intensively for listing one after another. But on the other hand, when we shift our perspective, a different scene comes into view.

Harbin SZRE Intelligent Medical Device Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "SZRE"), an industry veteran that owns Kangduo Robot, submitted its application to the STAR Market as early as October 31, 2022, passed the meeting of the Listing Committee on June 1, 2023, and then submitted its registration application. However, as of August 2026, three full years have passed since the submission of registration, and its review status is still fixed at "Submitted for Registration".

In fact, the three years during which SZRE's IPO is in process are exactly the three years when China's domestic surgical robot industry went from fanaticism to reshuffling. Recently, Tinavi (688277.SH) disclosed that it plans to acquire 62% equity of Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics Medical Technology Co., Ltd. by issuing shares.

The Surgical Robot Industry Is Facing Ebb Tide

When it comes to surgical robots, many people's first reaction is the "Da Vinci" which is expensive to manufacture and has a soaring share price. But the wealth creation myth of Da Vinci is ultimately not so easy to replicate. On the contrary, this concept, which was once held in high regard, quickly dropped to a low point in just a few years, so fast that people were caught off guard.

Xiao Tang (pseudonym) is a surgical robot product manager at a foreign-funded enterprise. In recent years, he has watched people around him leave one by one: some have switched to other companies, some have completely changed careers, and fewer and fewer people in his WeChat Moments are still discussing the surgical robot industry.

He did not leave. His WeChat Moments has thus become the most authentic "real-time broadcast" of the industry: the whole industry only completed 9 financings in 2024, Weiya Medical went bankrupt and was auctioned off last June, LongHui Medical collapsed this January, and even "the king of rigid endoscopes" Karl Storz announced a full withdrawal from the surgical robot track in June...

"The industry is in a relatively poor state now," he sighed, with a hint of helplessness in his tone, he confessed to the reporter of *STAR Market Daily*.

Xiao Tang's feeling is not an isolated case.

Zhao Shi (pseudonym) is a senior medical device investor. Recently, he has shifted his attention to the medical imaging track, moving his sight away from surgical robots. "I have friends who run enterprises in this industry, so I know exactly what is going on."

He recalled that a few years ago, surgical robots were the darlings of capital, and the source of the boom was exactly the benchmark set by Da Vinci. "At that time, everyone was looking at the imagination space of this concept. But now the imagination space has been broken by reality, investors hardly pay attention to it, and it is relatively difficult for enterprises to get external financing," Zhao Shi said.

He believes that unlike imaging equipment which is the infrastructure of hospitals and belongs to continuous rigid demand, the current surgical robot is more like a "nice-to-have" high-end option, not indispensable, which is also the reason why capital keeps a respectful distance from it.

Zhao Shi told the reporter of *STAR Market Daily* that he now has two hard criteria for screening investment projects: the revenue must be clearly quantifiable and continuously rising, and there must be visible profits. "The medical industry itself has a very long cycle, so we can't blindly chase high valuations just because a concept is good," he said, and surgical robots just fail to meet these two indicators, and at this stage they cannot bring very good revenue.

The prudence of capital has been most directly confirmed by the financial data of enterprises. A reality that cannot be ignored is that up to now, surgical robot enterprises are still generally faced with the problem of profitability.

Taking several enterprises that have been listed this year or are sprinting for IPO as examples, almost all of them are in a loss state. Among them, Huake Jingzhun is one of the few profitable enterprises, with revenue of 148 million yuan, 145 million yuan and 189 million yuan in the past three years respectively, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 18.2091 million yuan, -9.4879 million yuan and 40.5523 million yuan respectively. Even so, its profit performance is still highly dependent on government subsidies, which accounted for 58.96% of its net profit in 2025.

Regarding this wave of surgical robot enterprises intensively sprinting for A-share and Hong Kong stock IPOs, Miao Tianyi, Executive Partner of Puzhuo Capital, believes that as a high-end medical device and core track of "specialized, refined, differential and innovative" enterprises, the A-share market and Hong Kong Stock Exchange's 18A rules have always retained a smooth listing channel for unprofitable innovative device enterprises. Combined with supporting policies such as the implementation of the charging standard for surgical robot medical services at the beginning of the year and the procurement preference of medical institutions, it provides valuation support for enterprises to land on the capital market and creates a rare IPO window period.

On the enterprise side, the primary market financing is prudent, but surgical robots have the characteristics of "large R&D investment, long clinical cycle and high marketing cost". "Therefore, IPO has become the best way for enterprises at this stage to replenish working capital, continue R&D iteration, build sales channels and resist industry reshuffling."

Miao Tianyi said that this wave of intensive IPO spree, is a key layout for enterprises to strive for their own survival and growth.

As the industry cools down, not everyone chooses to leave. Zhang Taihao, Vice President of Investment at Zhengxin Valley Capital, is the one who takes a "reverse operation". He and his team not only did not withdraw, but after leading the C3 round of financing for Surui Robot in 2023, they led its $100 million Series D financing again at the end of 2025.

Having experienced the whole process of surgical robots from the darling of capital to the track that everyone avoids, Zhang Taihao has his own observation and thinking about this cycle: "The industry has come to this point not caused by a single reason, but by the superposition of several events."

In his view, capital bears an inescapable responsibility in particular. "If too little capital flows into a track, it cannot develop; but if too much capital flows in, it will also be hurt." Zhang Taihao's words point out the changes in the development over the past few years: from 2020 to 2022, the surgical robot industry completed nearly 30 financings every year, with huge hot money pouring in; by 2024, there were only 9 financings for the whole year.

The chain reaction after the influx of hot money is that enterprises poach talents from each other. "Without particularly strong technical route differences and patent protection, technology will basically flow along with the flow of personnel. As a result, the technical differences across the whole industry are getting smaller and smaller, and finally slide into homogeneous involution," he said.

According to Zhang Taihao, the vast majority of medical device investors have "transferred to biotech and technology tracks".

It is worth mentioning that the innovative drug industry has also experienced in-depth adjustment over the years and has gradually walked out of the trough now, but why can't the medical device industry pick up? In this regard, Zhang Taihao believes that a very important reason is that innovative drugs can do BD (Business Development, out-licensing / cooperative development) to sell their under-development pipelines to large overseas pharmaceutical companies, but medical devices are different.

"Medical device products are generally iterated and upgraded every 5 years, with fast iteration speed. In addition to patent protection, there are also technical secrets, which make the product life cycle significantly longer than that of innovative drugs, and the expected time for commercial profitability is generally the 5th year after product commercialization. Therefore, the mainstream of international innovative medical devices is to grow bigger through independent development or be sold as a whole, and only a very small number of passive devices protected by structural patents are suitable for BD."

"Secondly, since there is no so-called 'patent cliff' for innovative drugs, international device giants have a weak sense of crisis, and M&A valuations show polarization: if an enterprise only completes product R&D, its M&A valuation is mostly between 500 million and 1.5 billion US dollars; once it can achieve large-scale and global commercial sales, the M&A valuation of the enterprise can reach tens of billions of US dollars."

The Breakthrough Battle in the Second Half

At the node of 2026, the domestic surgical robot industry is entering a critical period of development competition, which Miao Tianyi defines as "reshuffling window period".

He judges that the domestic surgical robot industry will undergo complete differentiation at this stage. Among them, high-quality leading enterprises, with the advantages of products, capital and channels, will complete the ramp-up of installed capacity and surgical volume, and gradually realize loss reduction and efficiency improvement; while small and medium-sized players with serious product homogenization, lack of core technology moat and tight cash flow will be quickly squeezed out of the market, either merged and integrated, or directly eliminated.

Leading enterprises have taken the lead in taking action. On July 29, 2026, Tinavi (688277.SH), the leading domestic orthopedic surgical robot enterprise, disclosed its major asset restructuring plan. The company plans to acquire 62% equity of Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics Medical Technology Co., Ltd. by issuing shares, and raise supporting funds.

Since Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics is a member of the "MicroPort System", and its annual revenue exceeds 1.5 billion yuan, which is more than 5 times that of Tinavi, and both companies have not yet achieved profitability, this typical "snake swallows elephant" M&A has attracted high market attention once disclosed, and the subsequent integration and synergy will be the focus.

Orthopedics has always been a core track of surgical robots. According to incomplete statistics, there are at least more than 20 players in the current track. However, compared with the scale of installed capacity, there were only more than 100 bids won for domestic orthopedic surgical robots in 2025, and the intensity of competition cannot be underestimated.

Looking at Tinavi again, although its position as the market leader is stable, it won 42 bids in 2025 alone with a market share of over 40%, but the reality of consecutive years of losses makes the market generally interpret this acquisition as a breakthrough move of the company.

The underlying logic is that although Tinavi has built a surgical robot platform integrating three major orthopedic fields of spine, trauma and joint, the company's business model has long relied on equipment sales, while Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics is mainly engaged in hip joint prostheses, knee joint prostheses and other implants. After the acquisition is completed, Tinavi will supplement the orthopedic implant product matrix, form an integrated layout of "robot + implant + consumable + service", and accelerate its internationalization with the help of Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics' overseas channels.

"Now it is difficult to drive performance growth by simply relying on the sales of surgical robots, and with the intensification of industry competition, Tinavi must extend to the consumable field such as prostheses. The business model of 'equipment + consumables' has been successfully verified by Stryker's MAKO, which is a feasible path," Chen Yangbin, who once worked at Suzhou MicroPort UTRobot Co., Ltd. which also belongs to the "MicroPort System", told the reporter of *STAR Market Daily*.

"It can be said that the orthopedic surgical robot has entered the 'second half', and the competition has directly sunk to the prosthesis level," Chen Yangbin said. "Tinavi has been leading the orthopedic surgical robot track, and this industrial chain integration is no exception."

In fact, the industry has long been aware of the importance of the synergy between "equipment and consumables", but most domestic orthopedic surgical robots adopt an open platform route, which means that as long as the authorization from the manufacturer is obtained, consumables of different brands can be adapted.

However, under the open route, the clinical advantages of surgical robots are not obvious. "For example, for a joint replacement surgery, a senior orthopedic director at a tertiary hospital in a first-tier city only needs about 20 minutes to complete the operation manually, while even if the surgical robot runs smoothly, it takes 30 to 40 minutes," Chen Yangbin told the reporter of *STAR Market Daily*.

So in his view, orthopedic surgical robots can either sink to second- and third-tier cities and hospitals where doctors' capabilities are still in the growth stage, where there is a rigid demand market; or develop a closed system represented by Stryker's MAKO, that is, 'proprietary prosthesis + proprietary robot', which is a path with more commercial imagination than the "open system".

The so-called "proprietary prosthesis" refers to a prosthesis that can only achieve the best effect when operated with a robot, because some anatomical angles and osteotomy accuracy cannot be stably achieved by human hands.

Chen Yangbin believes that this is the underlying logic of MAKO's success, "Stryker not only takes the global lead in prosthesis material R&D, but more importantly, deeply binds the prosthesis with the robot, forming an irreplaceable closed loop."

A ready reference is the medial-pivot knee prosthesis of Shanghai MicroPort Orthopedics. Chen Yangbin told the reporter that this product has excellent performance, but its clinical promotion has not been very satisfactory. The core reason is that many doctors "can't perform the operation well".

"Therefore, after the completion of the acquisition, the most worthwhile thing for Tinavi to do is to push the prosthesis manufacturer to customize a proprietary prosthesis for its robot that can only be operated by the robot, and the clinical effect must be significantly better than manual operation. In this way, the irreplaceability of the robot is truly established, and its commercial value can be fully released," Chen Yangbin said.

Back to the endoscopic surgical robot track, Zhang Taihao believes that its involution degree is weaker than that of the orthopedic track, because the technical barrier of endoscopic surgical robots is still high, and leading enterprises have continuously repaired system bugs in a large number of clinical surgeries, accumulating first-mover advantages. Referring to the development course of the in-vitro diagnostic chemiluminescence track, nearly 300 enterprises fought in chaos at its craziest time, but in the end, excellent companies such as Mindray, Autobio, and Snibe still stood out, the key is that enterprises either target the differentiated high-end market, or target the overseas market, and down-to-earth make good products and services.

Now Surui is taking exactly this path. Zhang Taihao said that Surui adopts a more innovative single-port technical route, which is different from the past single-port technology, and can realize differentiated exclusive indications and better clinical effects. For highly original technologies, their commercial penetration and clinical popularization often require a longer cycle. Therefore, Surui has long maintained the third place in China's endoscopic market, but it is in an absolute leading monopoly position in the single-port field.

In terms of market strategy, Surui focuses on top hospitals, hoping to drive the overall technological progress through the demonstration of well-known doctors, and then expand to the sinking market; at the same time, it exerts efforts in developed overseas markets with patent moats, promoting the coexistence of current single-port and multi-port surgical methods to gradually transition to single-port as the mainstay.

At present, this strategy has achieved initial results. Zhang Taihao gave an example: in Europe, although Intuitive Surgical's single-port product has been sold for many years, the first pediatric single-port surgery was completed by Surui, and only Surui can perform pediatric single-port surgery at present. Many complex surgical procedures in the thoracic surgery department are also led by Surui.

Zhang Taihao said that to translate the first-mover advantage into greater results, capital support and long-term dedication of