Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) earlier today announced an agreement to acquire the remaining stake in Verb Surgical following its strategic collaboration with Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, on the Verb Surgical program. The news indicates that the Verb system has been making continued progress and that J&J feels incrementally confident in an eventual robotic assisted surgical offering, though the timelines still remain vague, Piper Jaffray analyst Adam Maeder tells investors in a research note. The analyst believes adoption of surgical robotics will remain robust for the foreseeable future, and he expects penetration to increase meaningfully over the next 5-10 years. However, he continues to view competition as still being a few years away from having a meaningful impact on Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).