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Health

Distalmotion raises $150 million to expand Dexter robotic surgery system

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Distalmotion, a medical technology company which provides robotic surgery systems, has announced the successful closing of its Series G financing round. The $150 million financing was led by Revival Healthcare Capital and included inside investor participation.

This new funding will be used primarily to accelerate US commercial adoption of Dexter, its soft tissue robotic surgery system, as well as to support ongoing clinical and product development initiatives.

A major focus of the US expansion continues to be the Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) market – one of the fastest-growing segments in surgical care, driven by the ongoing shift toward efficient, outpatient surgery. [Read more…] about Distalmotion raises $150 million to expand Dexter robotic surgery system

Saving Hours Each Week With Automated Liquid Handling

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Walk into most research labs during midweek and you’ll find at least one person hunched over a bench, pipetting. They’ve been there since morning. By afternoon, their hand’s cramping, and they’ve still got another hour of the same repetitive motion ahead of them.

This scene plays out daily in laboratories worldwide, and it’s costing more than just physical discomfort. Those hours spent transferring liquids manually? That’s time researchers could be analysing data, designing better experiments, or tackling that grant proposal that keeps getting pushed to next week.

Manual pipetting doesn’t just slow things down. It actively prevents scientists from doing the thinking work they’re actually trained for, the work that moves research forward. [Read more…] about Saving Hours Each Week With Automated Liquid Handling

Precision robotics: Applications in electronics assembly and medical device manufacturing

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A few decades ago, industrial robots were extraordinary because they could place heavy parts with centimetre-level accuracy. Today, the competitive benchmark has shifted by several orders of magnitude.

Modern precision robots routinely achieve ±5 µm repeatability, with some specialist motion stages achieving sub-micrometre accuracy. To put that into context:

  • 1 micrometre (µm) equals one-thousandth of a millimetre, often called a micron. Put another way, 1 micrometre is one-millionth of a metre.
  • A human hair is roughly 70 to 100 µm thick.
  • An advanced SCARA robot can place components with an error margin smaller than one-tenth of a human hair’s diameter.
  • High-end photonics assembly systems use motion stages with a command resolution of 0.1 µm – too fine for the average human eye to see, even when aided by most optical microscopes.

[Read more…] about Precision robotics: Applications in electronics assembly and medical device manufacturing

Distalmotion raises $150 million to accelerate US expansion of its Dexter robotic surgery system

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Distalmotion, a medical technology company empowering access to the benefits of robotic surgery in outpatient sites of care, has announced the successful closing of its Series G financing round. The $150 million financing was led by Revival Healthcare Capital and included inside investor participation.

This new funding will be used primarily to accelerate US commercial adoption of Dexter, its soft tissue robotic surgery system, as well as to support ongoing clinical and product development initiatives.

A major focus of the US expansion continues to be the Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) market – one of the fastest-growing segments in surgical care, driven by the ongoing shift toward efficient, outpatient surgery. [Read more…] about Distalmotion raises $150 million to accelerate US expansion of its Dexter robotic surgery system

Virginia Tech researchers develop AI-powered cobots to support autistic workers in manufacturing

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Autistic adults face lower employment rates than their equally qualified peers, in part because many workplaces don’t meet their needs. Meanwhile, manufacturers are struggling to hire skilled workers, and they may be overlooking the autistic talent pool.

A team of researchers at Virginia Tech wants to solve both problems: increasing autistic employment rates and bolstering the manufacturing workforce by designing collaborative robots, or “cobots”, that can work alongside neurodivergent workers and provide real-time feedback and personalized support.

Funding the research is a National Science Foundation grant of over $1.5 million to collaborators at Virginia Tech, George Washington University, and the University of Notre Dame. Virginia Tech is leading the project, with its share of the grant totaling $800,000. [Read more…] about Virginia Tech researchers develop AI-powered cobots to support autistic workers in manufacturing

Precision medicine: ETH demonstrates magnet-guided, robotic drug delivery

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Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a microrobot capable of transporting drugs to specific locations within the body, with the potential for use in hospitals in the near future. (See video below.)

Every year, 12 million people worldwide suffer a stroke; many die or are permanently impaired. Currently, drugs are administered to dissolve the thrombus that blocks the blood vessel.

These drugs spread throughout the entire body, meaning a high dose must be administered to ensure that the necessary amount reaches the thrombus.

This can cause serious side effects, such as internal bleeding. Since medicines are often only needed in specific areas of the body, medical research has long been searching for a way to use microrobots to deliver pharmaceuticals to where they need to be: in the case of a stroke, directly to the stroke-related thrombus. [Read more…] about Precision medicine: ETH demonstrates magnet-guided, robotic drug delivery

ETH researchers develop magnet-controlled microrobot that swims through blood vessels to deliver drugs directly to stroke-related clots

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ETH Zurich researchers have developed a magnet-controlled microrobot capable of navigating the human vascular system to deliver drugs directly to stroke-related clots, marking a significant step toward targeted, minimally invasive therapies. (Full story here.)

The technology, published in Science, represents one of the most advanced demonstrations to date of controlled microrobot navigation inside complex anatomical environments.

The experimental microrobot consists of a tiny spherical capsule made of a soluble gel loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic control and tantalum nanoparticles for X-ray visibility. [Read more…] about ETH researchers develop magnet-controlled microrobot that swims through blood vessels to deliver drugs directly to stroke-related clots

Cornerstone Robotics closes oversubscribed new financing round of approximately $200 million

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Cornerstone Robotics, an innovator in surgical robotics, is pleased to announce the closing of an oversubscribed new financing round of approximately $200 million.

This financing round attracts investment from a global strategic investor, some global institutional or sovereign wealth funds, and existing shareholders.

The proceeds from this round will primarily be used to accelerate commercialisation and drive continued technological innovation by Cornerstone Robotics. [Read more…] about Cornerstone Robotics closes oversubscribed new financing round of approximately $200 million

The Science of Clean Indoor Air: How Everyday Habits Impact Your Home’s Air Quality

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Here’s a startling fact: the air inside your home can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside. Yet most of us spend roughly 90% of our time indoors, breathing whatever quality of air our homes provide.

Indoor air quality isn’t just about comfort – it’s a health issue that touches everything from how well you sleep to how easily you breathe. While many homeowners focus on obvious culprits like smoking or chemical cleaners, they often miss how their daily cleaning habits can make or break their indoor air.

One of the most powerful weapons in this fight against indoor pollution is a quality vacuum, which can dramatically transform your home’s air when used correctly. [Read more…] about The Science of Clean Indoor Air: How Everyday Habits Impact Your Home’s Air Quality

Diligent Robotics launches new Nvidia AI-powered ‘world’s largest deployed fleet of mobile manipulation robots’

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Diligent Robotics, the company behind Moxi, the world’s largest deployed fleet of mobile manipulation robots working side by side with people, today unveiled plans for Moxi 2.0, its next-generation platform built with AI from the ground up.

The launch builds on three years of proprietary real-world data, collected from over 1.25 million deliveries in busy hospital environments and representing one of the largest datasets of real-world human-robot interaction.

Representing one of the largest deployed fleets of Nvidia-powered mobile manipulator robots in healthcare, Moxi currently operates in over 25 hospitals across the US to help nurses and pharmacy staff with routine tasks, such as delivering medications and lab samples. [Read more…] about Diligent Robotics launches new Nvidia AI-powered ‘world’s largest deployed fleet of mobile manipulation robots’