Gary Guthart on corporate priorities
From From the Innovator’s Workbench with Gary Guthart, PhD · · Stanford Biodesign
“Patients first, but we're not a healthcare provider, so we're going to make the MDs happy. MD success. Then the next thing was hospitals have to buy this. So what do hospitals need? They need a return on the investment they make. And then payers have to pay them. So what do they need? They need lowest total cost to treat per patient episode. We need to build a company that employees want to commit to long term. And finally, we need to make our shareholders happy.”
On , Gary Guthart, Executive Chair at Intuitive Surgical, Inc, spoke about corporate priorities during From the Innovator’s Workbench with Gary Guthart, PhD on Stanford Biodesign.
About Gary Guthart
During Intuitive Surgical’s Q1 2025 earnings call on April 1, 2025, Gary Guthart addressed the impact of trade policy changes on the company. He stated that the company’s first priority is to assure product supply to customers globally and that it does not plan “reflexive changes to our pricing in the dynamic near-term environment.” He added that a second priority will be to optimize production costs and rebalance product flows within the existing manufacturing and supply chain footprint as policies stabilize. Guthart attributed roughly half of a 170-basis-point impact in 2025 to U.S.-China trade in both directions and about 40% to imports into the U.S. from China, Mexico, and Canada. Guthart said the company is “perceived as part of the solution, not part of the problem” and that customers continue to adopt its systems because they see economic and outcome benefits. He described the total cost to treat per patient episode for a well-run program as “outstanding,” adding that hospitals achieve better outcomes, higher satisfaction, and the lowest total cost of care. He closed by reiterating the company’s belief in a “substantial and durable opportunity” to improve surgery and acute interventions, and its vision of care that is less invasive, with earlier disease identification and quicker treatment.