Surgical Robotics Technology
Medical device company, TransEnterix, has announced the opening of its first training center in the Asia-Pacific region for the Senhance® Surgical System. The center is located at the Saitama Medical University International Medical Center in Tokyo, Japan.
“The Asia-Pacific region has been a major contributor of new system placements and surgical cases utilizing Senhance, a trend that we would expect to continue into the future,” said Anthony Fernando, president and chief executive officer at TransEnterix. “We see the establishment of a dedicated surgical training center at Saitama as an important milestone in enabling faster adoption of Senhance in minimally invasive surgery throughout the region. Given the growth and opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region, we are pleased to provide local access to training for Asian surgical teams, which is particularly important in the current environment where travel to the US or EU is more difficult.”
“We were the first center in Japan to begin a clinical program utilizing the Senhance System to provide advanced digital surgical technology in treating our patients, and have grown our clinical expertise using the system in multiple surgical disciplines,” said Dr. Isamu Koyama, Senior Managing Director of Saitama Medical University. “This training center will allow surgeons from throughout Japan and the region to collaborate and develop their skills on the Senhance System as they begin utilizing this technology in their own institutions.”
The Asia-Pacific laparoscopy device market is expected to grow at a cumulative average growth rate of 8.2% from $1.26 billion in 2019 to $1.87 billion by 2024, according to Market Data Forecast, Inc. This expected growth, the significant benefits of digital laparoscopy, and the establishment of the Japanese Training Center is expected to drive increased utilization of our six system installations in the Asia-Pacific region and encourage further adoption of our technology in additional hospitals. In 2020, the number of clinical case procedures in this region utilizing the Senhance System has surpassed the number of procedures in all of 2019, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senhance System is the first and only digital laparoscopic surgical platform designed to maintain laparoscopic MIS standards while providing digital benefits such as haptic feedback, robotic precision, comfortable ergonomics, advanced instrumentation including, 3mm microlaparoscopic instruments, eye-sensing camera control and reusable standard instruments to help maintain per-procedure costs similar to traditional laparoscopy. The Senhance Surgical System was approved for use by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) in 2019, and has the broadest procedural reimbursement of any abdominal robotic surgery platform in Japan, which applies to 98 benign and malignant laparoscopic procedures across general, colorectal, gynecologic, pediatric and urologic surgeries at reimbursement rates equivalent to traditional laparoscopy in Category A1.
