Takeaways from a Moon Surgical Site Visit

I had the opportunity to spend time with team members of Moon Surgical in their San Carlos, Ca. facility. It was great to see some familiar friends from over the years as well.

The platform and pathway that Moon has chosen introduces an elegant, pragmatic, and scalable approach to surgery, addressing current and future challenges and opportunities in the healthcare marketplace.

My personal observations and takeaways:

– The empowerment of current surgical workflow and existing technology optimization in the OR.

– The purposefully agnostic system interface of current hand-held devices and the obvious potential of other device manufacturers’ opportunities that may have yet to have a pathway forward in the current analog market.

– A simple and thoughtful interface for imaging systems that lends itself to product features and expansions for manufacturers, whereas there were limits based on human interface in the past.

– A platform that sets up well for the emerging markets of ASC’s, Tier 2 hospitals, and alternative sites of care based on the footprint and economic models for those surgical centers.

– Maestro sets up really well as an “And” versus an “Or” in comparison to other existing large format form-factors surgical robots in the market today.

– While the team clearly has tremendous experience in surgical robotics, as reflected in a thoughtful system, they also are thinking in a refreshingly lateral and empowering way as to how they are approaching the market.

– I was looking forward to experiencing the system, and after the session, it is clear there is much more under the hood than I had originally assumed.

There is still lots to do and be proven out. There is something to be said for the boldness of simplicity in a rapidly materializing complex world of soft tissue robotics. The Maestro System makes the argument that there are other approaches to consider in the soft tissue surgical robotic race.

Many thanks to Anne Osdoit, David Noonan, and Jeffery Alvarez for hosting me on campus yesterday.