Virtuoso Surgical announced that it received a $1.8 million NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.
Nashville-based Virtuoso Surgical will receive the grant over the next two years. The funds support its robotic surgery system that utilizes a new scale of robotic tools and maneuvers in endoscopic surgery.
Virtuoso designed its system with two robotically controlled, needle-sized manipulators working from the tip of a rigid endoscope. That endoscope comes in at less than half the diameter of a U.S. dime. The scope is smaller than current endoscope hardware, the company says, and the manipulators are 1mm in diameter. It also features a camera, tissue grasper, retractor, tissue snare, laser aiming manipulator and electrosurgical tools.
The system previously demonstrated feasibility in animal, cadaver and tissue model studies. Virtuoso Surgical featured in our list of 16 companies you need to know in the space.
“We are honored to receive this SBIR Phase II grant as we move toward commercialization of our groundbreaking robotic surgical system,” said Dr. S. Duke Herrell, III, CEO, co-founder and chief medical officer of Virtuoso Surgical. “The Virtuoso system gives surgeons their hands back, enabling them to use two ‘hands’ to perform procedures deep within the body, at the tip of an endoscope, with unprecedented control and dexterity.”
Herrell said the grant enables the company to continue its research using its robotic technology to improve bladder lesion removal. Research takes place with Dr. Ahmed Ghazi and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University Simulation Innovation Lab at the Brady Urological Institute.
Virtuoso plans for initial applications in bladder lesions in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) tissue removal. However, it has eyes on future surgical procedures with tools delivered through rigid endoscopes.