robot-assisted Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Medical Design Sourcing

CMR Surgical raises $600M to expand Versius robot commercialization

CMR Surgical officials tout the Verius system’s size, portability and versatility. [Image courtesy of CMR Surgical]CMR Surgical has raised $600 million in a Series D financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and co-led by Ally Bridge Group.

The Cambridge, U.K.–based company said yesterday that it will use the money to boost the global commercialization of its Versius surgical robotic system, making keyhole surgery accessible to more people worldwide. Business Weekly notes that the newest money raise means that CMR Surgical has brought in nearly $1 billion in recent years.

CMR has already launched Versius in Europe, Australia, India and the Middle East. Company officials tout the Verius system’s size, portability and versatility.

“This latest financing equips CMR with significant funds to accelerate our mission of bringing Versius to hospitals worldwide, whilst providing full flexibility to achieve our goals. This major injection of cap…

Titan Medical collects $10M milestone payment from Medtronic

Titan Medical (TSX:TMD;OTC:TITFX) announced today that it received another $10 million for licensing developed technologies to Medtronic (NYSE:MDT).

Toronto-based Titan Medical completed the second technical milestone under the development and license agreement it made with Medtronic in June 2020. The company achieved the first milestone in the agreement in October 2020 by raising $18 million in capital.

Shares of TMDI shot up nearly 6% to $1.94 apiece in morning trading today. MassDevice‘s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up slightly.

According to a news release, should Titan complete the third technical milestone, it would be in line to receive an additional payment of approximately $11 million.

The development and license agreement between Titan and Medtronic covers the development of robotic-assisted surgical technologies for use by both companies in their respective bu…

Intuitive Surgical up on Street-beating Q1

Intuitive Surgical (NYSE:ISRG) stock rose nearly 10% today, a day after the company reported first-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street expectations.

Baird upgraded Intuitive’s stock rating to outperform after the news yesterday evening, according to media reports.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.–based robotic surgery company reported profits of $435.2 million, or $3.51 per share, on sales of nearly $1.3 billion for the three months ended March 31, 2021, for a bottom-line gain of 37.6% on sales growth of 17.5% compared with Q1 2020.

Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $3.52, 11¢ ahead of The Street, where analysts were looking for EPS of $3.63 on sales of $1.11 billion.

Compared with Q1 2020, systems revenue grew 30%. Instruments and accessories revenue was up 14%.

Intuitive CEO Gary Guthart cautioned during the company’s earnings call that recovery of business has been uneven: “Our experience shows …

FDA clears Zimmer Biomet partial knee system for its Rosa system

Zimmer Biomet today said it received FDA 510(k) clearance for its Rosa Partial Knee system for robotically-assisted partial knee replacement surgeries.

Rosa Partial Knee is the latest addition to Zimmer Biomet’s Rosa Robotics platform, which includes the Rosa Knee system for total knee replacement surgery and Rosa One for neurosurgical and spine procedures. The Rosa Partial Knee is also a part of the company’s ZBEdge.

The partial knee system is designed for compatibility with Zimmer Biomet’s Persona Partial Knee. It has 2D and 3D X-Atlas imaging technology with real-time, intraoperative data collection on soft tissue and bone anatomy to improve bone cut accuracy and range of motion gap analysis.

“The FDA clearance of the Rosa Partial Knee system just two years after the introduction of the Rosa Total Knee system builds on the success of our Rosa robotics portfolio, which is designed to help enhance surgical accuracy, precision and…

Vicarious Surgical to go public in $1.1B SPAC deal

[Image courtesy of Vicarious Surgical]Vicarious Surgical will go public through a $1.1 billion special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, the robotic surgery pioneer announced today.

Vicarious, which has sought to bring robotics and virtual reality to minimally invasive surgery, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RBOT after the merger with D8 Holdings.

Hong Kong–based D8 Holdings’ acquisition of Vicarious Surgical will add more than $425 million in cash to Vicarious’s balance sheet upon the deal’s close, including a $115 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) priced at $10 per share. Pipe investors include strategic investor BD, new institutional investors and existing investors including Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, and Philip Liang’s E15 VC.

The SPAC deal comes nearly a year and a half after FDA provided breakthrough device des…

ForSight Robotics raises $10M for ophthalmic robotic surgery platform

Forsight Robotics, a developer of a robotic surgical platform for ophthalmic procedures, has reportedly raised $10 million.

According to a report from TechCrunch, the seed round of financing was led by Eclipse Ventures and Mithril Capital and is earmarked to be used for expanding the company’s headcount and global reach as it sets its sights on launching its robotic surgery platform in multiple markets around the globe.

The Isreal-based company’s robotic surgical platform is designed to utilize microsurgical technology, advanced visualization and machine learning to produce automated ophthalmic procedures that offer precision and cost-effectiveness, according to the company’s website.

According to CTech, the company, which employs 15 people at present, was founded by Moshe Shoham, the founder of Mazor Robotics, which was bought by Medtronic for $1.7 billion.

Additionally, Intuitive Surgical and Auris Health (now part of Johnson &…

FDA approves first robot-assisted system for transvaginal hysterectomy

Image from Memic Innovative Surgery

The FDA announced today that it authorized marketing for Memic Innovative Surgery’s Hominis system for transvaginal hysterectomy.

Hominis is the first FDA-approved robotically-assisted surgical device for performing transvaginal hysterectomy, with indication for performing benign hysterectomy with salpingo-oophorectomy, according to an FDA news release.

Using minimally invasive surgical instruments inserted through the vagina and a video camera inserted laparoscopically through a small incision on the abdomen, the Hominis surgical system is designed to remove the uterus. The transvaginal approach requires fewer incisions on the abdomen compared to the traditional laparoscopic hysterectomy, the FDA said.

Surgeons in the operating room control instruments during the procedure through the Hominis system console, for which the FDA will require Memic to develop and provide a training program for surgeons and operating…

Stereotaxis up on Street-beating Q4 results

Shares of Stereotaxis (NYSE:STXS) shot up in morning trading today after the robotic surgery company reported Street-beating Q4 results and predicted double-digit revenue growth this year.

The St. Louis–based company, creator of robotic technologies for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, reported a loss of –$1.18 million, or –2¢ share, on sales of $6.82 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2020, versus a loss of $1.08 million, or –2¢ per share, on sales of $6.89 million in Q4 2019.

Earnings were a penny ahead of The Street, where analysts predicted a loss of –3¢ per share on sales of $6.03 million.

CEO David Fischel said 2020 was a year of significant progress, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The highlight of the year was receipt of FDA clearance for the Genesis RMN System and successful installations of the first systems in the United States and Europe. We begin 2021 with purchase orders for five robotic systems reflec…

Titan Medical brings in another $23 million

Titan Medical (TSX:TMD;OTC:TITFX) today announced the closing of a $23 million bought deal.

The Toronto-based surgical robotics company conducted the sale by way of a short form prospectus in each of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario — as well as a private placement in the U.S. Last month, Titan Medical raised an additional $21.5 million in two additional bought-deal offerings announced on Jan. 5 and Jan. 26.

“It’s been a very active season for Titan Medical Inc. We are in better shape than we have ever been, and we’re looking forward to an exciting 2021,” CFO Monique L. Delorme told MassDevice.

Titan president & CEO David McNally noted in an earnings news release out on Feb. 22 that the company in 2020 executed a license agreement and a separate development and license agreement with Medtronic. The result was the company’s first revenue of $20 million, by way of license payments.

“We believe Titan …

BREAKING: TransEnterix announces name change, new category of surgery

TransEnterix (NYSE:TRXC) announced today that it will change its name to Asensus Surgical and introduce a new category of surgery to its offerings.

Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Asensus Surgical said in a news release that its name change represents its broader vision of shaping the future of surgery by integrating computer vision and machine learning with surgical robotics. Sensus is Latin for “cognition,” highlighting the connection between surgeons’ knowledge and the augmented intelligence technology, the company said.

Including “A” ahead of “sensus” is a hat-tip to augmented intelligence, while “Asensus” also represents “ascending” and elevating” as a tribute to the company’s efforts to elevate robotic surgery.

As a result of the name change, which is effective today, Asensus stock will begin trading under the ASXC ticker on the New York Stock Exchange at the open of t…

Could artificial intelligence boost surgical robotics to new heights?

Goldberg and his team trained a da Vinci surgical robot to automatically perform peg transfer slightly faster and more accurately than an experienced surgical resident. [Image courtesy of the Autolab at UC Berkeley]Ken Goldberg thinks artificial intelligence will enable surgical robots to achieve their best function — not replacing surgeons but augmenting their work by reducing the monotony of specific subtasks like suturing.

The William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley, Goldberg and his research team have continued to advance the field.

The group — which includes postdoctoral researchers Minho Hwang and Jeffrey Ichnowski and PhD student Brijen Thananjeyan — has demonstrated how a deep neural network plus 3D-printed depth-sensing markers can train a da Vinci surgical robot to automatically perform peg transfer slightly faster and more accurately than an experienced surgical resident.

They also published a paper in Science Robot…

TransEnterix brings in $79.6M from stock offering

TransEnterix (NYSE:TRXC) recently announced that it has closed on a public offering of more than 26.5 million shares of its common stock, with roughly $79.6 million in aggregate gross proceeds for the surgical robotics company.

The offering, in combination with recent financing activity, extends TransEnterix’s cash runway into 2024. The money will go toward general corporate purposes, including working capital, product development and capital expenditures.

H.C. Wainwright & Co. was the offering’s sole book-running manager.

News of the fundraising comes weeks after TransEnterix received CE Mark approval for its Intelligent Surgical Unit, which adds AI-based capabilities to the company’s Senhance robotic surgery system.