The problem with eye surgery today

  • Lack of consistency
    Lack of consistency
  • Human hand accuracy limit
    Human hand accuracy limit
  • Many years of training
    Many years of training
  • Shortage of surgeons
    Shortage of surgeons
  • Not scalable
    Not scalable
  • Analytics is lacking
    Analytics is lacking

Eye surgery restores more than vision.

The ability to see is everything.
We take it for granted, but it's how we experience the world around us. All of it. And when we might lose it, we’ll do anything to get it back.

Cataract

A cataract is a pathologic condition in which the lens of the eye slowly opacifies with age. This results in blurry vision, color changes, halos around light, and at its worst, blindness.

There are many causes and risk factors for developing a cataract, the most common one being aging. Cataracts are a leading cause of blindness worldwide, and the only treatment is surgery to remove the cataract and implant an artificial lens.

Cataract surgery is the most common elective procedure worldwide, with over 30M surgeries per year. Unfortunately, many people do not have access to this modern, sight-saving cataract surgery due to a lack of access to trained surgeons.

As the global population continues to age, the prevalence of cataracts will continue to increase worldwide.

Cataract

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a slowly progressive disease that causes damage to the optic nerve. This disease is typically asymptomatic until advanced visual field loss occurs, where patients develop severe “tunnel vision.”

Glaucoma is a major public health problem and is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide after cataracts. The current treatment involves lowering the pressure in the eye, initially with eye drops. However, if glaucoma continues to progress, surgery to decrease the eye pressure is often needed to slow the disease’s progression.

In many parts of the world, patients cannot afford or do not have access to eye drops and surgery is the only effective treatment. To make things more challenging, there is a shortage of ophthalmologists who have been trained to perform glaucoma surgery.

Glaucoma

Subretinal Delivery

Gene therapy treatments and cell therapies to regenerate the retina are some of the most promising therapies for retinal diseases, such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, inherited retinal diseases, and glaucoma.

Many of these involve injection of the gene therapy and cells underneath the retina, called a “subretinal injection.” Subretinal injections are performed during retinal surgery and require a very high degree of precision, accuracy, and steadiness for successful outcomes. Very few surgeons are trained to do this and the challenges of subretinal surgery have been a big hurdle in the way of successful clinical outcomes.

There is a need to standardize and allow for a high degree of precision and accuracy would greatly assist in allowing gene therapies and cell therapies to be given to a greater number of people.

Subretinal Delivery

Retinal Diseases

Several retinal conditions can lead to severe vision loss.
These include:

  • Retinal detachment: a tear in the retina leading to fluid building up detaching and damaging the retina.
  • Macular hole: a hole in the center part of the retina which results in poor vision.
  • Epiretinal membrane- scar tissue on top of the retina which disrupts the retinal structure and leads to distortion of vision.
  • Proliferative diabetic retinopathy: This can lead to bleeding and scar tissue which can distort and detach the retina.

These conditions are very prevalent due to aging, diabetes, and obesity. All of these retinal conditions are treated through surgery. Retinal surgery is one of the most technically difficult microsurgeries, requiring many years of training to master.

Fine, precise motion is required to manipulate extremely delicate tissue within the small, constrained space of the eye — often with forces that are below human tactile perception. There is a need to enable higher levels of precision and allow for a larger number of people to perform them will help prevent blindness from these retinal diseases.

Retinal Diseases

Merging consistency &
adaptability

We are developing robotics that learn as they perform;
continuously improving techniques
for the best clinical outcomes.

  • Improves with dataImproves with data
  • AI-based learning <br />
algorithmsAI-based learning
    algorithms
  • Superb clinical outcomes with <br />
minimal variationSuperb clinical outcomes with
    minimal variation