Luna Innovations has decided to continue to work with Intuitive Surgical for developing and integrating the Shape Sensing Technologies created by Luna into the products devised by Intuitive.
Luna and Intuitive had entered into a multi-year agreement in June 2007, where Luna would provide its fiber optic- based shape sensing system, which would be integrated into the medical robotics products of Intuitive Surgical. Luna has successfully completed its development obligations as per the agreement and hence the extension for the current year’s development work.
According to Dale Messick, who is the Chief Operating Officer and the Interim President of Luna, the new agreement would reinforce their relationship with the leading medical robotics expert and also reveal their commitment towards advancement of medical technology. This partnership would help both the companies to offer technologies, which would improve surgical procedures.
The Vice President of Intuitive, Dave Rosa has commented that they believed that Luna was a strong force to reckon with in the field of position tracking systems and advanced shape sensing systems. Luna’s special shape sensing system follows the path of the optical fiber all through its length and gives real time measurements, which would help surgeons to navigate inside the human body. This technology is very helpful to perform minimally invasive surgeries as it was essential to track the exact position of the medical instruments inside the human body with the help of optic fibers, which were equivalent to the human hair. These optic fibers would provide sensing and feedback very similar to what the nervous system does within the human body.