This article serves as a preliminary study in Noah Medical's series of in-depth reports, aiming to help investors establish a core value judgment framework for the medical robotics industry.

In the current heated landscape of the medical robotics sector, market discussions often focus on technical specifications and commercialization progress. However, from a long-term investment perspective, these dimensions are insufficient to explain the value differentiation among companies. What truly determines the long-term value of a medical robotics company is the level of clinical problems it solves—not the technology itself.

The global medical robotics market is projected to grow from approximately $70-80 billion in 2023 to over $200 billion by around 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 15%. More noteworthy is the structural shift: the industry's core growth is rapidly shifting from the "surgical execution end" to the "diagnosis and treatment entry point," namely, earlier disease detection and more accurate early diagnosis and intervention. Competition surrounding equipment performance is giving way to competition focused on "solving clinical problems themselves."

I. Three-tiered value logic: Problem hierarchy determines long-term potential.

Deconstructing the essence of medical innovation, clinical problems can be divided into three progressive levels:

First layer: Can it be done? — Medical procedures that were previously difficult to achieve or lacked stability, corresponding to breakthroughs in clinical capabilities;

Second level: How fast is it done? — Corresponding to efficiency improvement;

Three layers: Is it cheap or not? — Corresponding cost optimization.

Currently, most medical robotics companies' innovations are concentrated in the latter two levels, essentially extending existing medical capabilities. The truly lacking and long-term competitive advantage lies in penetrating one level—using technology to enable previously difficult medical procedures to be performed safely and accurately, thereby creating groundbreaking clinical value.

This logic has been repeatedly validated by the industry. The da Vinci Surgical System has over 8,000 installed units globally and performs over 2 million surgeries annually. Its consistently high gross margin and stable growth stem from its irreplaceable "capability substitution" in complex minimally invasive surgeries. The same logic applies to technologies like TAVR and electrophysiological ablation—they all open up new market spaces by establishing new clinical capabilities. Companies that solve the "can it be done?" problem typically possess higher technological barriers, stronger pricing power, longer product lifecycles, and more significant valuation premiums.

II. The Neglected Clinical Capacity Gap: From "Discovery" to "Confirmation"

This framework is particularly clear in the field of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. Lung cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the highest incidence and mortality rates worldwide, with more than 2.2 million new cases and nearly 1.8 million deaths each year, accounting for more than 18% of all cancer deaths.

In recent years, the widespread adoption of low-dose CT screening (LDCT) has significantly improved the ability to detect problems—the detection rate of pulmonary nodules in high-risk populations can reach 20% to 30%. However, the ability to make a diagnosis has not improved at the same time, and has instead become a new systemic bottleneck.

In the case of peripheral pulmonary nodules, over 65% of pulmonary nodules are located in the peripheral region of the lung, and the success rate of traditional bronchoscopy in reaching deep lesions is significantly limited. Furthermore, the dynamic discrepancy between preoperative CT images and the patient's actual respiratory status leads to widespread localization errors in clinical practice.

This isn't an efficiency issue, but rather a matter of insufficient capability. Achieving stable access within complex lung structures and high-precision positioning in dynamic environments—these core capabilities directly determine diagnostic accuracy and safety, constituting a typical "capability gap opportunity." For investors, these opportunities have distinct characteristics: definite demand, clear pain points, and high technological barriers. Once a breakthrough is achieved, it often creates a lasting barrier and a longer growth cycle.

III. Noah Medical: Strategic Choices for Filling Capability Gap

As the industry shifts from "efficiency optimization" to "capability creation," Noah Medical has chosen to address the aforementioned capability gaps by focusing on the core issues in the diagnostic process of early lung cancer diagnosis. By using technological means to improve the ability to reach and locate lesions, Noah Medical fills a crucial gap in the diagnostic chain.

The technological foundation of this approach lies in the deep integration of real-time image localization and AI with robotic control systems. The Galaxy system can dynamically correct the deviation between the image and the human body during surgery, achieving higher-precision lesion localization in complex environments—which is precisely the key technical challenge in the current diagnosis of peripheral pulmonary nodules.

Core clinical data

Since its FDA approval in 2023, the Galaxy system has completed over 10,000 clinical procedures and has been installed in more than 50 units. Its robotic-guided bronchoscopy achieves a diagnostic rate of over 90% to 93%, a lesion localization success rate of approximately 96%, a low complication rate, and demonstrates excellent safety. In the field of similar robotic bronchoscopy for the lungs, it holds approximately 5% market share and is still in a phase of rapid growth.

In terms of market size, the global market for natural cavity surgery robots is estimated to exceed US$80 billion, with the lung cancer biopsy segment accounting for approximately US$6 billion. The Chinese surgical robot market is projected to maintain a compound annual growth rate of 30% to 36% over the next few years, with some early-stage innovative sub-sectors experiencing even higher growth rates. More importantly, non-invasive technologies are continuously expanding the potential patient population—patients previously excluded due to trauma risks or treatment difficulties are gradually becoming diagnosable and treatable.

The core value of Noah Medical's chosen path lies in its combination of "certain demand" and "expansion potential": on the one hand, lung cancer diagnosis and treatment corresponds to a huge and continuously growing rigid clinical demand; on the other hand, the high-precision access and positioning capabilities established based on natural cavity pathways have the platform potential to be replicated and expanded to other departments. Noah Medical is not in a single-product track, but rather in a capability path that is expected to gradually extend.

Conclusion

The investment logic in the medical robotics industry is essentially a judgment of "problem level." Amidst the same technological hype and market narratives, companies that choose to address unresolved clinical problems and create new medical capabilities through technology are often the true investment targets with long-term structural value. Noah Medical is a representative company worthy of continued attention within this framework. Subsequent articles will further analyze its technological path, clinical data, and commercialization progress.

— This article is part of Noah Medical's in-depth research series —