Promoting Innovation in Healthcare Event

On March 28, 2019, the AICC (Austrian Israeli Chamber of Commerce) and LANSKY, GANZGER + partner (LGP) invited to the “Promoting Innovation in Healthcare” event. Harel Gadot (MEDX Ventures Group), Chen Levin (XACT Robotics) and Shai Policker (MEDX XELERATOR LP) joined from the United States and Israel to talk about fascinating medical innovations and discuss the future of medical robotics.

The future is here

During his keynote speech, Harel Gadot presented promising developments for the future of robotics in healthcare. He started his presentation by reminding us that we are still not comfortable with the idea that robots are increasingly being used in medicine, despite the fact that we are regularly flying with airplanes which are primarily flown by robots. Harel believes that any fear that one day physicians will become superfluous is totally unfounded. Surgeons will continue to be needed to monitor the robot’s operations and intervene when errors occur. The great advantage of medical robots is their superior technical capabilities. By allowing robots to assist in surgery, doctors will be able to focus more on their intellectual abilities.

The only robotic navigation and steering system

One of the evening’s highlights was Chen Levin’s presentation of XACT Robotics™, the only robotic navigation and steering system for safe and accurate one-shot-to-target percutaneous image-guided procedures. The XACT™ system is expected to significantly reduce the learning curve for interventional radiologists to perform complex needle trajectories and to accurately and repeatedly reach the desired target, regardless of the trajectory’s length or target’s size. The revolutionary XACT Robotics™ technology can apply to a wide range of applications, procedures (biopsy, ablation, draining, biomarkers etc.) and target organs (lung, liver, bone, adrenal, kidney etc.) using different imaging systems within the image-guided and robot-assisted surgery market.

Not every idea is a good product

Shai Policker, who is the inventor of 36 issued patents, was the third speaker of this evening. He is currently working at MEDX Xelerator, a unique medical device and digital health incubator. Shai explained that his mission is to identify and develop promising technologies into successful medical ventures for the benefit of patients and health care professionals. Shai, who is mainly focusing on early stage medical devices and digital health, elaborated that not every idea or technology is a good product. People need to identify a problem or recognize a need in order to succeed with their medical product.