BRIGHTON – FlexDex Surgical has completed a $5 million Series B financing round that will be used to commercialize the company’s first product, fund development of a second-generation device and a create a catalogue of instruments for laparoscopic surgery.
Financing was led by current investors and included the co-founders, board members, individual investors and distributors. The University of Michigan spin-off’s first product is the FlexDex platform to provide surgeons with high performance and cost effective minimally invasive surgical instruments
“We are very pleased to have so many successful business leaders and healthcare professionals participate in our financing” said Tom Davison, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FlexDex Surgical. This financing will support our goal to provide enhanced dexterity instruments to every surgeon, in every operating room all over the world at an affordable cost.”
Laparoscopic Surgery is the minimally invasive approach to abdominal surgery during which the
abdomen is inflated with gas to create an operating space. Small incisions are made to accommodate an endoscope for visualization and long narrow surgical instruments.
Laparoscopic surgeons require specialized training and years of experience to become proficient. Recently, robots have been introduced to facilitate advanced laparoscopic procedures with improved dexterity compared to traditional laparoscopic instruments. Surgical robots are very expensive and require special training for surgeons and the operating room staff.
The company’s focus is to enable advanced minimally invasive procedures with greater precision and less fatigue. FlexDex was developed at the U-M by co-founders Shorya Awtar, Sc.D., James Geiger, MD and Greg Bowles. This platform technology enables highly intuitive, one-to-one mapping of the surgeons arm and hand motions to the articulating instrument inside the patient’s body. The patented “Virtual Center of the FlexDex platform is a simple mechanical design that will greatly enhance the capabilities of all Minimally Invasive Surgical (MIS) instruments and endoscopes.
