Asensus Surgical (NYSE:ASXC) announced today that it entered into a multi-year collaboration with Google Cloud.
The collaboration integrates Google Cloud’s secure cloud data architecture and machine learning into the Asensus surgical robot platform. It further expands the capabilities of Asensus’ performance-guided surgery framework through its Intelligent Surgical Unit (ISU).
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina–based Asensus designed its performance-guided surgery to enhance accuracy and efficiency. The company says its platform can help surgeons avoid complications and improve patient outcomes.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Google Cloud to realize and scale our Performance Guidance Surgery capabilities, by leveraging the data collected by our state-of-the-art ISU technology in conjunction with Google Cloud’s leading machine learning technologies and cloud architecture,” said Anthony Fernando, Asensus Surgical president and CEO. “For several years, we have been pioneering digital surgical capabilities to provide surgeons with novel, real-time intraoperative digital tools and clinical intelligence. This collaboration to better capture clinical performance data and apply augmented intelligence capabilities to provide clinical insight, will ultimately drive consistently superior outcomes for patients.”
How Asensus and Google plan to collaborate
Asensus designed ISU as a real-time intraoperative surgical image analytics platform. It leverages augmented intelligence to help reduce surgical variability. The company said it provides tools that reduce surgeons’ cognitive fatigue while collecting relevant clinical data.
Plans are in place to enable customer access portals and performance dashboards for surgeons and hospitals. Asensus said Google Cloud’s secure cloud data architecture then captures this data.
The company plans to use machine learning technologies from Google to analyze the data and discern clinical intelligence. Surgeons and hospitals can utilize this intelligence, Asensus said. The company may also continuously improve the software in the ISU to provide better intraoperative clinical insight.
“Asensus’ expertise in real-time intraoperative tools combined with our expertise in secure data-capture and machine learning will give surgeons advanced insights to help them in their important work,” said Aashima Gupta, global director of healthcare for Google Cloud. “We are bringing our shared commitment to developing powerful tools for surgeons and healthcare providers around the world, ultimately enabling them to offer more effective, digitally-enabled care to patients worldwide.”
Asensus plans to offer additional details on the partnership during its investor day on Feb. 21.
More about the Asensus Surgical ISU
The ISU responds to the surgeon’s commands and recognizes certain objects and locations in the surgical field. New features include 3D measurement, digital tagging and image enhancement. It also features enhanced intraoperative camera control based on real-time data.
The FDA cleared machine vision capabilities for the ISU in September 2021. Asensus received CE mark for an expansion of machine vision capabilities with its surgical robot last month. The company currently offers expanded ISU capabilities across Europe, Japan and the U.S.
Asensus said that its European approval demonstrates its commitment to delivering its promise of “performance-guided surgery.” It expects the new features to provide “meaningful support” to surgeons across a range of procedures.
The company also said new augmented intelligence features leverage the future capabilities and potential of the ISU.