Investing.com -- In a note to clients Monday, analysts at Deutsche Bank cut their rating for Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) to Sell from Neutral, lowering their price target for the stock to $440 from $515 a share.
ISRG shares are down more than 5% so far in the session, trading above the $525.50 mark.
The bank stated that in conjunction with its note, it is hosting an investor webinar with Jon Reuter, COO of Keck Hospitals of USC, on Monday, June 9, with the discussion expected to help inform how Intuitive’s hospital customers are thinking about the adoption of remanufactured Endowrist instruments.
Deutsche Bank told investors that it believes Intuitive Surgical will likely face increasing competition.
While the firm is “highly confident in the durability of da Vinci (EPA:SGEF) surgery’s dominance in the years ahead,” it noted that there are multiple competitor robotic systems on the horizon, including the FDA approval of Medtronic’s Hugo, expected in late 2025. These systems could impact ISRG’s competitive moat.
Despite downgrading the stock, Deutsche Bank did state that Intuitive’s da Vinci platform “has proven to be amongst the most disruptive technologies in medtech history.”
They also acknowledged that shareholders have “accordingly been rewarded with the stock up over +26000% since its 2000 IPO (vs S&P 500 returning ~+500%) – and ISRG remains a consensus long.”