Medrobotics Corp. is going to begin limited marketing in Europe of a robot-assisted surgical device based on snake robot research performed at Carnegie Mellon University. The company based in Raynham Massachusetts has obtained the CE Marking that allows the company to initiate a limited commercial launch of their Flex System in select European Markets.
Three researchers including Howie Choset, PhD Professor of Robots at Carnegie Mellon, Alon Wolf PhD, a post-doctoral researcher and now on the faculty at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Marco Zenati M.D., previously a Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine but now at Harvard Medical School, developed the surgical snake robot and then co-founded Medrobotics as a Carnegie Mellon spin-off in 2005.
Choset is a leading expert on multi-jointed robots resembling snakes that can be used as surgical devices. Choset and his team designed a probe that could bend but yet remain rigid. The device combines the features of a laparoscope with an endoscope.
Physicians can use a joystick to steer the Flex System around organs or other obstructions. The head of the device features a high-definition video camera. Ports on either side of the camera can accommodate tools for cutting or grasping tissue. Although the device was initially developed and tested for heart procedures, Medrobotics has focused their marketing on head-and-neck surgery accessible through the mouth.
Choset, the company’s Acting Chief Technology Officer said, “He is gratified that the research may soon begin to help patients. Commercializing a surgical device is not something that a robotics professor can accomplish with grants from the university”, according to Choset. He added, “It requires a large, long-term investment that only a private company can bring together with additional specialized medical device expertise.”
According to the team, Pittsburgh was the ideal starting point for this technology because of their world-class expertise in the Robotics Institute, and the entrepreneurial and marketing support available from the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse which initially invested in Medrobotics.
For more information, call Byron Spice at 412-268-9068.