J&J’s robotics and digital R&D head offers advice for device developers

After Johnson & Johnson MedTech won FDA de novo authorization for its Ottava surgical robotics system, we asked Global Head of Robotics & Digital R&D Neda Cvijetic for lessons from the product development journey that could help other device developers succeed with their own projects.

In the second part of our interview with Cvijetic from the July 2026 Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS) annual meeting, she also offered her perspective on the future of surgical robotics, including automation and digital twins. (In the first part of our interview, she discussed Ottava’s folding arms, soothing sounds and haptics capability.)

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The following has been lightly edited for space and clarity.

MDO: We’re always looking for methods to help identify and understand unmet needs. Did your R&D team use any unusual or particularly useful methods over the years?

Cvijetic: “There are two dimensions to that. One is connectivity of Ottava. That connectivity, that flywheel of continuous innovation really is powered by data and insights. It’s data from the procedure itself — whether it’s video or kinematics — that also produces metadata metrics after the procedure that are very data-driven, and we’re able to leverage that actually to flex that muscle of making that innovation actionable based on all these data sources, and of course customer and clinical feedback. That is incredibly important to us. We are relentlessly focused on listening to our customers and actioning their feedback at pace. And then the other dimension of that is the connection to the Polyphonic digital ecosystem. At SRS this week there’s been a lot of conversation about sensors in the OR, ambient listening, mission control, and that connection with Polyphonic really enables data from anywhere to come in and create additional insights. We’re part of that ecosystem and what’s really compelling is that once you have that infrastructure, those insights, those benefits can come in the form of software releases if you have put the infrastructure in place and made design decisions in your hardware space that are built for that capability from the ground up, which is the case with Ottava.”

Related: Sensors on surgeons helped J&J sell a new tool

You’ve said the next big thing you’re working on is detailed imaging to enable task automation. Where is this technology headed?

Cvijetic: “In terms of automation, that fully motorized, spatially aware architecture creates the opportunity for a cadence of releases of software in that dimension. That innovation pipeline and the features we bring to the market will be designed to empower the human clinical expert in the OR. Full stop. Everything we do will be done for that purpose, and how we prioritize that feature cadence and what we bring to the market first will be informed very directly by the feedback from our customers.”

Are digital twins part of the future of surgical robotics?

Cvijetic: “It is beyond an R&D conversation at this point. The entire community is recognizing the benefit of having high-fidelity simulations in terms of optimizing workflows and accelerating innovation. In our case, we are starting with Monarch for urology in deploying advanced photorealistic, physics-accurate simulation tools. This gives us the ability to not only model the robot in a physics-accurate way — the kinematics of the robot, the geometry —  but the entire OR: lighting that’s photorealistic, rigid body physics, interaction physics.

“As more and more physics models come into these tool chains, you can think about fluidics, deformation physics, all being modeled. And at that point, so many of clinically relevant aspects, whether that’s outside of the patient and in the OR or even surgical scenes inside of the patient, we have the capability to realistically model them. Once we have that capability, it opens up a universe of possibilities: preoperative planning software for clinical teams, surgical simulators that could begin to look like something like a high-fidelity flight simulator for pilots. My vision is that we started with Monarch for urology, but we have the capability to leverage technologies like that across our entire surgical robotics portfolio.”

Previously: J&J MedTech arms its Monarch robot for futuristic lung cancer therapies

If you’re sitting down with a medtech engineer, what could you share from the Ottava journey to help them innovate?

Cvijetic: “On the technological front, for surgical robotics or robotics of any kind, the software and digital capabilities are as important as the hardware. And if you look historically, that hasn’t always been the case for robotics. It has traditionally been a hardware-driven engineering discipline. Now it is both. It is both in equal measure. Think about those interplays between the two, because the ability to bring both with equal differentiation is what will create the greatest innovations going forward.

“And then in terms of engineer-to-engineer culture, any time you’re working on something category-defining, it’s incredibly important to have that bold spirit and to realize it may not be a fully linear path, but it is an incredibly worthwhile path. A key indicator of success there is increasing momentum, and that increasing momentum is definitely something that we continue to feel and have and what I felt during my time here.”

First Look: J&J unveils its Ottava surgical robotics system