2. Eximis Surgical
Keeping incisions small from the start to finish is Kristin Johnson’s passion. The CEO and co-founder of Eximis Surgical focuses on delivering on the promise of minimally invasive surgery for less pain and less time in the hospital – and cutting the time spent in the operating room. “We want to enable hospital staff to be more efficient, and patients to recover faster.”
Johnson initially began to explore how to replace morcellators, used in laparoscopicy procedures, most notably in hysterectomies. The morsellation technique has had some high profile adverse events, and is characterized by long, labor-intensive process of tissue removal.
Johnson said she saw an opportunity to improve on the morsellator process. The XCor slices rather than minces the tissue into narrow strips in a gentle manner and captures those tissue segments in a containment bag. The nature of the method helps with pathology identification. “The clean cut allows surgeons to pick out different features.”
She quickly discovered that the technology could be valued beyond women’s health, to any large specimen removal.
The research is clear in terms of the value that MIS represents, Johnson said. “This is a platform to address different organs and specimen sized that currently don’t have a surgical solution.”
Eximis is now conducting studies, putting prototypes into the hands of surgeons. “The other day we had one surgeon that was able to remove a 12-cm specimen in about 5 minutes.”
