With the rapid development of technology, the emergence of surgical robots has brought infinite clinical possibilities. It can not only solve the traditional surgical accuracy of poor, long operating time, doctor fatigue and other pain points, but also bring patients a better Access to medical experience, greatly reducing the pain caused by surgery.
Some industry insiders have pointed out that surgical robots are one of the hottest areas in the medical device industry. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, the global surgical robotics market size in 2016 was about $3.5-4 billion, with a comprehensive Internal and external environment analysis of the global surgical robots market is estimated to maintain a CAGR of around 11%. The global surgical robots are projected to achieve a market size of over USD 5.8 billion by 2020.
Established in 2011, Singapore’s EMUS Group is an enterprise that integrates R&D, production and sales of surgical robots. Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang Medical Technology Co., Ltd (“Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang”), invested by Emus Group, landed in 2018 Nanjing, plans to open its doors to the Chinese market with three minimally invasive surgical robots.
Core team – over 20 years of research on surgical robots
Li Deli, founder of Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang, studied at the School of Aerospace and Aeronautics at Xi’an Jiaotong University and later pursued his PhD in Theoretical Physics – Quantum Mechanics at the University of Hong Kong.
In 1992, while attending a conference in Singapore, Mr. Lee learned that Singapore was beginning to attract the global elite to build “smart healthcare”. Asia Pacific Center. As a result, Li Deli, who was already very optimistic about the future of the smart medical field, gave up going to the United States after obtaining his doctorate in 1993 The opportunity to further his studies, immigrated to Singapore and began research and development of surgical robots.
In 1999, after accumulating several experiences in the development of intelligent medical technology, Lee Deli led a core team of members to establish Xinlian Group (Infobuz Pte Ltd), and has completed more than 20 intelligent medical robots. 2011 In 2010, to realize the industrialization of medical robots, Xinlian and AGT Group integrated several related teams in Singapore and founded (AIMS).
AIMS integrates more than 20 years of research in the field of intelligent medical and surgical robotics from leading research institutes in Singapore, Europe and the United States. to provide effective and safe medical solutions for hospitals, doctors and patients.In 2018, to expand the Chinese market, accelerate the product On the ground, Li Deli, as the team leader, established Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang in Nanjing.
Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang’s core business involves intelligent robotics, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, medical image processing and other fields. At the early stage of its establishment, relying on the technical team of EMUS, Zhong Yi Zhichuang has completed the industrialization development of a variety of medical robots, recently Preparing to launch the Smart Medical Robotics Middle Stage, Minimally Invasive Prostate Surgery Robot, Smart Labor Pain Relief Robot and Four products of the microwave ablation robot.
Technology center stage – fundamentally changing the R&D process in smart healthcare
Surgical robots are high-end medical devices, the difficulty of access to core technologies, long product development cycle, product performance and safety requirements.
Its research and development needs to rely on a combination of core technologies and practical experience in a number of fields, including robotics, computer network control technology. digital image processing technology, virtual reality technology and medical surgical technology, while focusing on ergonomics, mechanical design, software The intersection of control, kinetics, and other multidisciplinary technologies, any one of which can affect its safety, applicability, therapeutic effectiveness, or cost of treatment etc. In addition, stringent device safety monitoring, healthcare industry regulations, and market access regulations have led to long commercialization cycles for surgical robots. The cost of research and development remains high.
Currently, most of the surgical robots on the market are based on the surgical purpose of the R & D process to determine technical solutions and system functions. The system functions need to rely on multiple fields of technology and practical experience, after a long period of research, a large amount of capital investment to obtain If there is a mistake in any link, it may lead to a substantial prolongation of the R&D cycle, or even R&D failure.
Based on more than 30 years of technology accumulation, Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang has developed the intelligent medical robot “Technology Center” through the summary of experience in the research and development of more than 20 kinds of medical robots.
The technology center stage relies on the intelligence of EMUS backstage overall empowerment, the widely used medical intelligence technology into a platform, its built-in biomedical identification, three-dimensional reconstruction of organs, artificial intelligence diagnosis and other technologies can significantly reduce the time and cost of research and development, for the traditional medical robotics research and development to build a platform for the successor.
Dr. Lidley explained to Arterial, “Like most mobile phones today, the operating system is universal and manufacturers are working out the Once the hardware is best designed, it can be loaded directly onto an off-the-shelf system without having to do most of the software-related development work yourself . It is this ‘system’ role that the technology center stage plays in the development of medical robots.”
The technology center stage fundamentally changes the development process of intelligent medical products, only need to design a functional module based on the purpose of surgery that specifies which technologies need to be used, can complete the development of a surgical robot, significantly shorten the development cycle, reduce the cost of research and development, but also solve the problem of scarcity of multi-disciplinary personnel.
3 Surgical Robots – Arming Doctors with Technology for “Eyes, Brains, Hands”
- Minimally Invasive Prostate Surgery Robot
Prostate cancer is already the second fastest growing type of cancer in our country and one of the most common cancers in men worldwide, severely affecting the men’s health. But in contrast to this is the fact that, if detected and treated early, limited prostate cancer (where the tumor is confined to the prostate) or only The 5-year relative survival rate of prostate cancer patients with regional spread can reach 100%.
The minimally invasive prostate surgery robot developed and manufactured by Sino-Impact can assist doctors in completing the process of accurate diagnosis, minimally invasive local treatment, and dynamic post-operative monitoring.
The minimally invasive prostate surgery robot combines the patient’s lesion information obtained from modern medical imaging technology with the robot’s built-in 3D ultrasound image in real time, which can help the doctor to complete the process of accurate diagnosis, minimally invasive local treatment, and dynamic post-operative monitoring. Accurate alignment of the navigation system, together with the results of routine tests and blood PSA tests, not only increases the rate of diagnostic confirmation in one visit to 90%, but also increases the number of patients diagnosed in one visit to 90%. More than that, and can precisely locate the location and boundaries of the lesion to achieve the purpose of accurate diagnosis. The completely digitalized and accurate diagnosis process solves the problem that the local minimally invasive treatment cannot precisely locate the lesion area at multiple points, which leads to the inability of the localized and accurate diagnosis. Ensure the pain point of the treatment effect, for the promotion of local minimally invasive treatment, reduce patient injury laid a solid foundation.
Doctors in the use of Sino-Enrich Minimally Invasive Prostate Surgery Robot, according to the actual situation of the patient, the operation of the robot to choose laser heating, microwave ablation, radioactive particles and other different ways to carry out local minimally invasive treatment.
Compared with the traditional prostate cancer surgery, the damage to the patient using the minimally invasive prostate surgery robot is limited to the cancer. The focal area and several pinholes can significantly reduce the pain of the patient. In addition, the cost of treatment is only 10-50% of conventional surgery. What’s more, the integration and digitization of the precise diagnosis and local minimally invasive treatment process provides the dynamic monitoring of the subsequent treatment results. An effective platform for taking the necessary measures in time to improve patient health and extend life expectancy.
- Microwave Ablation Robot
Microwave ablation is a minimally invasive local treatment modality, which uses a needle to pierce the lesion and conducts radiofrequency microwaves to The needle tip position, and produce high temperature in this position to destroy the lesion, to achieve the purpose of treatment. Microwave ablation technology has a wide range of clinical applications, such as cardiology radiofrequency ablation for arrhythmia, oncology microwave ablation for liver cancer. Therefore, minimally invasive local treatment will gradually replace the current organ cutting treatment in the future.
Since minimally invasive local treatment has the advantages of greatly reducing the patient’s injury, reducing the risk of cancer cell spread after surgery and saving medical expenses, it will gradually replace the current organ excision treatment in the future.
However, the current minimally invasive local treatment techniques have three major pain points.
- Even the most experienced doctors are unable to accurately determine the effect of treatment by precise multi-point positioning.
- The inability to determine the boundaries of the lesion to ensure that the treatment is fully completed and the risk of postoperative spread of cancer cells.
3、The current minimally invasive local treatment process is not digitalized and cannot be dynamically monitored to ensure the treatment effect after the surgery is completed.
These 3 major pain points cannot be completely solved by the doctor’s experience, and need to rely on technological means to achieve better treatment results.
The microwave ablation robot of Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang relies on the aforementioned technology, and cooperates with the microwave ablation system and other minimally invasive treatment technologies to complete the local minimally invasive treatment.
The robot provides precise multi-point positioning of the lesion, which is precisely operated by the robot, solving the pain point of not being able to precisely multi-point positioning of the treatment; it uses artificial intelligence three-dimensional image lesion identification technology to locate the boundary of the lesion, which, together with precise robot operation, reduces the risk of postoperative cancer cell proliferation and solves the pain point of not being able to ensure the treatment effect; Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang’s microwave ablation robot digitizes the above diagnosis and treatment process, so the doctor can access the complete process of diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment at any time, compare it with the current patient condition and medical information, judge the treatment and recovery effect, carry out dynamic monitoring and achieve good treatment effect.
- Intelligent Labor Pain Relief Robot
The National Health and Wellness Commission (NHC) has proposed in its Circular on the Pilot Work on Labor Pain Relief to improve the technical level of labor pain relief and improve maternal Scientific selection of delivery methods. Reduction of the proportion of deliveries by caesarean section due to intolerance of labour pains and promotion of a gradual decline in the rate of caesarean sections through the implementation of analgesia for childbirth. In recent years, the rate of natural childbirth has increased, further improving the health of mothers and newborns.
In recent years, the prevalence rate of analgesia in childbirth has reached over 85 per cent in developed countries, but less than 8 per cent in China. In addition, survey results show that China’s Caesarean section rate is as high as 46.5 per cent, the highest in the world, far higher than that of the World Health Organization. The recommended upper limit of 15%.
One of the main reasons why it is difficult to promote analgesia in childbirth in China is the shortage of anaesthetists. It is believed that the shortfall of 300,000 anaesthetists needs to be addressed in order to achieve the national goal of promoting analgesia in childbirth.
The intelligent labor analgesic robot developed and manufactured by Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang can digitize and informatize the whole process of anesthesia for painless delivery, automatically complete the accurate input of anesthetic, continuous monitoring of key indicators of pregnant women, indicators of abnormal alarms and other work, reducing the technical requirements of the anesthesiologist, but also allow an anesthesiologist to monitor the situation of multiple pregnant women at the same time, effectively solving the pain problem of insufficient number of anesthesiologists.
Future development – relying on its own advantages to promote the development of the industry
The establishment of Sino-Imation in Nanjing is strongly supported by the Nanjing Pukou Hi-tech Zone. In addition to cooperating with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to establish the “NUS Amus Intelligent Medical Research Centre”, we also cooperate with the Pukou Hi-Tech Zone to establish the “NUS Amus Intelligent Medical Research Centre”. Kechuang Investment Group jointly established “Nanjing EMUS Institute of Intelligent Medical Robotics” and “Wu Peiheng” in cooperation with Nanjing University. Academician Workstation”, established a wisdom medical industry base that integrates industry, academia and research.
At the time of this epidemic, Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang quickly transformed Emus’ hospital logistics robot into an intelligent disinfection robot and plans to put it on the market by July 2020.
Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang believes that with the advent of the 5G era, intelligent healthcare will be an inevitable trend in the future development of the healthcare industry. The epidemic has shown the advantages and possibilities of using robots in the medical industry. Together with the fact that most of the domestic surgical robot enterprises are still in their infancy, Zhong Yi Zhi Chuang’s many years of R&D experience in the industry have Definitely an advantage.
Dr. Lee Deli told Artery.com in an interview, “Due to the relatively high barriers to entry in the industry, we believe that surgical robots will be in a long It’s going to be blue ocean for a while. And Technology Center is a product that can help many startups that are still in product development to reduce the time and cost of development. Hopefully, we can use this format to move the industry forward at a faster pace.”