Pittsburgh CREATES (Collaborative Research Education and Technology Advancement in Surgery) has partnered with Vicarious Surgical Inc., a Massachusetts company.
Discussions began earlier this year about the potential for collaborative efforts when representatives from Vicarious reached out to CREATES Medical Director, Dr. Uma Duvvuri, in the spring, according to Norman Gottron, Director of CREATES, which is part of the Department of Otolaryngology.
Vicarious went public in 2021 and is developing a next-generation robotic assisted surgery system.
The broad plan for collaboration includes an understanding of the current landscape/challenges, verification/validation testing, regulatory testing, and FDA approval testing prior to product launch.
“We anticipate a phased approach to executing the partnership, with the first activity commencing sometime in the next few months,” said Gottron. “We are planning an event to have key opinion leaders in surgery provide feedback on the landscape of robotic surgery and the clinical value preposition for the company. This will occur sometime in the first quarter of next year.”
CREATES leverages the academic and clinical resources of Pitt and UPMC to drive development in surgical innovation, robotics, and adjacent technologies.