**: The home of the instrument, unauthorized shall not **, and 24 hours later**.
Recently, ASENSUS Surgical signed an agreement with diversified manufacturer Flex to provide design and advanced manufacturing services for ASENSUS Surgical's LUNA Surgical System, a next-generation surgical robotic platform.
It is understood that Flex will provide a range of services over the lifetime of Luna's products, enabling Asensus Surgical to deliver the platform faster and at scale. These services include design services to evaluate and improve LUNA manufacturability to help ensure a seamless and rapid transition from product design to mass production.
Anthony Fernando, President and CEO of Asensus Surgical, said: "Luna is poised to revolutionize the way surgery is done, and our priority is to bring the platform to market as quickly and reliably as possible. Flex's proven track record of delivering complex electromechanical systems across diverse industries, as well as a deep understanding of the complex requirements of medical devices, will enable us to accelerate the time-to-market of the LUNA platform." β
"Our collaboration with ASENSUS Surgical will enable them to bring the LUNA platform to market faster, more reliably, and more sustainably, making next-generation surgical robotic solutions more accessible to patients around the world." β
All-in-one digital surgical solution
LUNA Surgical System
Asensus Surgical, formerly known as Transenterix, was originally founded in 2006 and is committed to shaping the broader future of surgery by combining computer vision and machine learning with surgical robotics. In 2021, Transenterix changed its name to Asensus Surgical Inc.
With the superior performance of the Senhance platform, ASENSUS Surgical is also known as the "Da Vinci Terminator" and has become one of the representative companies of innovative abdominal surgery robots. The LUNA Surgical System, which has been partnered with Flex, is an integrated digital surgical solution.
According to the introduction, Asensus currently has first-hand data, and through thousands of real-world surgeries and years of interaction with surgeons and hospitals, it understands that the market needs much more than just a robot.
Asensus states that the best solution will significantly reduce intraoperative surprises, improve intraoperative decision-making, and avoid complications. And the company is working hard to provide such a solution, a "performance-guided surgery function" that can usher in a new era of surgery, which will be the foundation of the LUNA Surgical System. The company revealed that the incremental feature set under development includes:
The analytics feature set, which includes preoperative surgical planning, allows surgeons to map and plan specific surgical operations intraoperatively, using the enhanced intelligence of ISUThe set of safety features, which includes a "no-fly zone" feature, will be able to identify and flag potential hazards during surgery, thereby restricting instrument access to defined anatomical structures;Training and education sets, which include remote presentations, allow multiple team members to collaborate in real-time by annotating, highlighting, and drawing on a visual display of a shared surgical area.
On January 4, 2024, ASENSUS announced that it had completed in vivo surgical experiments on the LUNA surgical robot system and conducted an in vivo evaluation of LUNA's hardware, software and instruments on a pig model. The experiment allowed 9 participating surgeons to evaluate the functioning of the system through 13 different procedures in the Department of Urology, Urology and General Surgery, and the LUNA surgical robotic system was praised by the participating doctors.
Digital laparoscopic platform Senhance system
It is worth mentioning that, in addition to the LUNA surgical robot system, the most representative product of ASENSUS is the company's Senhance system, which is the first digital laparoscopic platform. It has multiple independent robotic arms capable of manipulating a variety of surgical toolsIn addition to the capabilities of traditional surgical robotic systems, the device is equipped with advanced features such as haptic feedback, eye-tracking camera control, arm stabilization, and 3D high-definition images, enabling surgeons to perform more complex operations and increase the variety of surgeries.
In terms of application, the system uses machine vision technology to provide a high-definition, stereoscopic view of the surgical scene through a camera and advanced image processing software, helping surgeons see the operating area more clearly. The open platform also allows the system to seamlessly integrate and interoperate with many different medical devices and technologies.
In addition, Senhance has improved on laparoscopic surgery by introducing haptic feedback and eye-tracking systems for the first time, allowing doctors to control the perspective of the surgical camera without jet lag simply by moving their own eyes. This is what the da Vinci surgical robot has not yet laid out. Therefore, the FDA previously evaluated that "the Senhance minimally invasive surgical robot system is as accurate and better than the da Vinci robot system".
It is worth mentioning that it is also the first surgical robotic system to offer a 3mm instrument, which is currently one of the smallest instruments on the global robotic surgical platform.
It is understood that the system has been approved by the FDA in 2017 and can be used in the fields of laparoscopic** surgery, colorectal surgery, cholecystectomy and inguinal hernia repair. It is also CE marked, MDD compliant, and suitable for laparoscopic surgery in adults, including the abdomen, pelvis, and limited range of applications in the thoracic cavity. It can currently be sold in the United States, Europe, Japan, Russia and other countries or regions.
It is important to note that in November 2023, the FDA initiated a Level 1 recall for the Senhance system due to the possibility that the laparoscopic instrument actuator (LIA) of the SENHANCE system may unexpectedly rotate after being disconnected from the digital remote operating system, which will cause uncontrolled and unintentional movement of the device, with the potential risk of harming important tissues.
Flex is a leader in CDMO
According to public information, Flex is a global manufacturing company across industries. Founded in 1969 in Silicon Valley, USA, Flex changed its name and re-registered in Singapore in 1990 and IPO the following year. At present, the company is headquartered in Singapore and its administrative headquarters is located in the United States. At present, Flex has deployed its business in 12 major industries, including medical, automotive, industrial, lifestyle, communications, enterprise computers, cloud services, and consumer goods.
In 2010, Flex began to deploy in the medical business. At the beginning of the layout of the business, Flextronics took the OEM model, and its foundry customers include Johnson & Johnson, Abbott, Xerox, Medtronic, Insulet and other well-known enterprises. Subsequently, Flex gradually transitioned to CDMO, especially in the medical device industry with high value-added chains.
In 2020, Flex partnered with Steer Fai to develop a 4K orthopedic endoscopic camera system (Lens 4K). Produced by the medical device production line in Gaoqiao, Shanghai, Flex has been developed in stages throughout the product life cycle, from metal parts to system integration to the final product.
At the same time, Flex has also entered into a partnership with novocure, an innovative medical device company in the field of oncology. The latter developed Optune is an innovation in glioblastoma by delivering a specific electric field to a specific tumor area, interfering with the mitomaes of tumor cells. As a result of the partnership, Flex designed and developed a new mold for the main components of the Epton, which was half the size and weight of the original.
In addition, through acquisitions and mergers and acquisitions, Flex has successively deployed in the fields of catheters, minimally invasive surgery, endoscopy, and surgical robots. As a leading CDMO company, according to the information on the official website, Flex currently cooperates with more than 16,000 leading companies.
Laparoscopic surgical robots have great prospects
A number of domestic enterprises have laid out the track
According to the Global Laparoscopic Surgical Robot Market Historical Size & **, the global Laparoscopic Surgical Robot market size will continue to grow and is expected to reach USD 14.4 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 21 to 20257%, which will reach $28.6 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 146%γ
Global Laparoscopic Surgical Robot Market Historical Size & **, 2017-2030e
Data from Frost & Sullivan.
According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, from 2017 to 2021, the market size of China's laparoscopic surgical robots increased from 70 billion yuan increased to 32400 million yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 467%γIt is expected that the market size of China's laparoscopic surgical robots will continue to grow in the future, and the market size of China's endoscopic surgical robots will reach 47 in 2023800 million yuan.
At present, the market for international laparoscopic surgical robots is still occupied by intuitive surgery. In recent years, affected by the driving factors such as the improvement of minimally invasive surgery awareness, core technological innovation breakthroughs, and policy encouragement and support, the market space of laparoscopic surgical robots in China is large and the growth rate is fast, which has attracted the layout of many enterprises.
The laparoscopic surgical robot is currently the most widely used surgical robot, which can assist doctors to complete all kinds of complex minimally invasive surgeries, and can be used for minimally invasive surgery in urology, thoracic surgery, general surgery and other related departments.
The emergence of laparoscopic surgical robots, which can improve surgical accuracy and safety, has significantly changed the landscape of minimally invasive surgery. So, after ASENSUS, known as the "Da Vinci Terminator", reaches a cooperation with Flex, what kind of development will the two companies usher in in the future?We will continue to pay attention.