December 7, 2020
Virtual Incision, a Nebraska Innovation Campus-based medical device company founded by University of Nebraska faculty, has reached another milestone on the road to transforming abdominal surgeries by way of a miniaturized, first-of-its kind surgical robot platform.
The Food and Drug Administration granted the company an investigational device exemption, which green lights a clinical study of the platform, called MIRA, to be carried out at a limited number of U.S. hospitals. This is a crucial step toward FDA approval of MIRA, which stands for “miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant.”
Nebraska engineer Shane Farritor, the company’s chief technology officer, said advancing the miniaturized device is critical to helping the more than 400,000 Americans each year who need colon resection procedures to treat lower gastrointestinal diseases like diverticulitis, colon polyps, pre-cancerous and cancerous colon lesions and inflammatory bowel disease, among others.