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Distalmotion SA

Route de la Corniche 3
Bâtiment SE-A
1066 Epalinges
Switzerland

info@distalmotion.com

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who or what is Distalmotion?

Distalmotion is an international company founded and based in Lausanne, Switzerland that serves as a trusted partner to hospitals and clinics worldwide by providing reliable and precise robotic surgery systems – designed, developed and manufactured in Switzerland – at transparent and fair per-procedure cost.

Our mission is to remove the complexity out of robotic surgery in order to fast track its widespread adoption in minimally invasive surgical care. To do so, we have developed a surgical robot called Dexter that integrates seamlessly and without compromise into existing laparoscopic procedures to bring sought-after simplicity and versatility to the market for minimally invasive care.

Our vision is to establish a new –robotic – global standard of care, one that allows everyone to access the benefits of robotic surgery.
Who or what is Dexter?

Dexter is Distalmotion’s proprietary surgical robot. Dexter is a lean product that couples the precision of robotic surgery with the reliability of Swiss engineering; quick to setup, with a low footprint, bringing surgeons back to their patients and operating teams.

Built on an open technology platform, Dexter’s proprietary sterile, single-use equipment make it a multi-purpose robot that readily integrates with existing laparoscopic processes.

Dexter allows sterile surgeons and their teams to switch between laparoscopic and robotic surgery in less than 20 seconds.

Dexter features two arms beside the patient, which control its two instruments. They can be individually re-aligned to change trocar sites during surgery and are designed to provide ample working space for the assistant surgeon to, for example, hold the endoscope in a laparoscopic setup. Furthermore, Dexter’s surgeon console is optimized for ergonomic use in a seated and standing position, reducing the physical strain posed on operating surgeons by traditional robotic consoles.
What are the distinguishing features that differentiate Dexter from other robotic surgery systems?

Dexter stands for a paradigm shift in robotic surgery whereby the technological frontier in surgical robotics is made-to-fit and serve all needs.

Firstly, Dexter allows the surgeon to be sterile around the patient – able to switch between robotic and laparoscopic processes within 20 seconds – while also benefiting from robotic instrument wristing and an ergonomic working position. The ability to readily switch back and forth between robotic and laparoscopic surgery is unique, truly reducing the complexity in robotic surgery for the entire operating room team and making the surgical robot fit for routine use.

Furthermore, Dexter is built on a transparent pay-per-use model that foregoes large lump-sum investment costs and aligns Dexter’s costs with its usage. This innovative model will often allow for one robot per department, as opposed to merely one robot per institution/hospital.

In addition to reducing the cost of robotic surgery to levels that can be covered with the existing reimbursement fees and budgets for a large variety of interventions, Dexter is also an open robotics platform that accommodates laparoscopic instruments as well as any imaging system, thus not limiting capacity and compatibility for investment in innovation.

Equally notable: Dexter was designed knowing that surgery is a collaborative task, undertaken in close-knit teamwork by surgeons and their operating room teams. Everyone listens, communicates and works together in this collaborative process. Thus, Dexter was designed to allow human-robot interaction to work successfully; addressing known pitfalls in robotic surgery in a quest to reduce cognitive and affective distance within operating room teams, and avoid the “boxed-in and lonely surgeon” phenomenon. It took long, careful and mutual adjustment of Dexter’s underlying technology in order to tailor the robot to the social settings where it is deployed. The result is a surgical robot that combines the best of laparoscopy and robotics, while preserving close-knit, collaborative laparoscopic workflows, thus bringing surgeons closer to their patients and teams.
Why is Dexter available at lower cost than other robotic systems?

We designed and developed Dexter based on a transparent pay-per-use model that foregoes large lump-sum investment costs and aligns Dexter’s costs with its usage. All costs – from robot rental fees, to charges for usage, training, servicing and system updates – come at transparent and flexible monthly rates.

More fundamentally, we do not consider robotics a replacement for laparoscopy, thus we designed Dexter to be a versatile robot that reduces the complexity in robotic surgery; providing all known benefits of robotic surgery with two arms, while integrating seamlessly with existing laparoscopic procedures (existing setups in the operating room remain unchanged). Substantial cost reductions are one of several positive externalities that stem from reducing complexity in robotic surgery.
Is Dexter really made in Switzerland?

Yes, Dexter is designed, developed and manufactured in Switzerland.

As an international company with Swiss roots – founded and headquartered in Lausanne – Distalmotion’s uncompromising approach to precision, service and reliability is driven out of Switzerland. Distalmotion stands for and invests in reliable engineering at the forefront of robotics technologies – developed, engineered and manufactured by leading researchers, designers and specialists in Switzerland. Dexter therefore combines the precision of robotic surgery with the reliability of Swiss engineering.

We stand by our conscious decision to establish our office and grow our team in a high tech environment with immediate access to the latest innovations, know-how and talent in robotics, for this enables us to deliver a surgical robot at the highest quality and precision standards. Hence, we are here, in Lausanne, Switzerland and we are here to stay.
Tell me more about Distalmotion, what is the story, what is the organisational structure and what does the company stand for?

Distalmotion was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the Robotics Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Today, we count more than 30 full-time employees with a strong track record in the medical devices sector, ranging from sales and R&D, to supply chain and design specialists.

Distalmotion is led by an experienced leadership team in Michael Friedrich (CEO), Matthias Reif (Head of Sales & Marketing) and Alexandre Berthoud (Head of Supply Chain & Operations); and said leadership team can draw on the advisory services of a board that boasts extensive industry experience.

To date, complexity and associated costs have limited the widespread adoption of robotics in surgical procedures. Annually 9 million laparoscopic procedures still do not benefit from robotic surgery.

Making sense of technological developments is a complex challenge, and making sense of the pitfalls and opportunities in surgical robotics is particularly challenging. Instead of considering robotics a replacement for laparoscopic surgical procedures, Distalmotion has developed a surgical robot called Dexter that integrates seamlessly with laparoscopic procedures.

We believe that, in robotic surgery, one size does not fit all, and although the value-add of surgical robots has been demonstrated, robotic systems run the risk of increasing, rather than reducing, the complexity of surgical procedures. Surgical robots also often struggle to overcome cost-barriers to adoption, due to large lump sum investment costs that do not mesh well with procurement cycles. Furthermore, surgical robots run the risk perpetuating a cognitive and emotional disconnect within operating teams, leading to a loss of the “human component” in the equation. That is why we have made it our mission to reduce the complexity in robotic surgery and designed Dexter to inject the sought-after simplicity and versatility, while also reinserting the human component back into the equation.

By reducing complexity in surgical robotics, and bringing operating room teams closer together and closer to their patients, Distalmotion is out to fast track the widespread adoption of robotic surgery in minimally invasive care.

More Questions? Browse our News & Updates

Distalmotion SA

Route de la Corniche 3
Bâtiment SE-A
1066 Epalinges
Switzerland

info@distalmotion.com

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