The new Bitrack System robot for minimally invasive laparoscopy surgery, developed by the company Rob Surgical, has successfully completed its technical validation on experimental models and is preparing for European authorisation and to enter the market by 2019.

Bitrack is the modular, flexible and more economical alternative to the American Da Vinci robot installed in many leading hospitals around the world, including Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic and Vall d'Hebron University Hospital.

The trials using the final prototype were conducted in the new experimental operating theatre at Specipig, a CRO with GLP certification specialising in offering this service to medical technology companies. The trials involved surgeons specialising in surgical robotics with knowledge of the Da Vinci system, including Dr Javier Magriña, Mayo Clinic surgeon. The technical management of the project was the responsibility of Dr Josep Amat, academic at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and head of robotics at the Research Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CREB).

“The global challenge of robotic surgery is to improve efficiency, in other words, without losing any of the effectiveness of the current systems make it possible to acquire robots at a lower cost to meet certain technical demands of the medical community. We set out to put robotic surgery within the reach of most hospitals”, explains Jaume Amat, CEO of Rob Surgical and member of the the governing body of CataloniaBio & HealthTech.

More information is available on this press release.

Photo: Josep Amat, Jaume Amat and Alícia Casals - © Rob Surgical, Anna Mas