Monogram Orthopedics Develops Futuristic Joint Replacement Robots

The Future is Here

If someone asked you what the two most capital-intensive industries are, what would you say?

To me, the answer is crystal clear: medical technology and robotics.

For medical technology companies, getting FDA approval is a very expensive (but completely necessary) undertaking, particularly if clinical trials are necessary. For robotics companies, product development and prototyping require major amounts of capital.

Monogram Orthopedics, a Texas-based startup, has managed to cost-effectively merge these two industries.

The company is developing a robot that is able to perform knee and hip replacements without any user-initiated movements. Monogram is hoping (in the next few years) to deliver the following three-step patient experience:

Step 1: A computerized tomography (CT) scan of a patient’s knee/hip is taken to develop a virtual “map” of the affected area.

Step 2: An artificial intelligence-powered 3D printer creates a patient-specific press-fit implant (cementless implants believed to show higher stability than cemented implants, which are used in 92% of knee-transplants now) that matches the exact anatomy of each individual patient.

Step 3: Using the data from the CT scan, a robotic arm makes a precise cut in the knee/hip and inserts the custom implant with a high degree of accuracy.

Higher precision and faster surgeries. That’s the name of the game with Monogram.

At first glance, this may seem too futuristic (and borderline impossible).

I’m here to tell you that Monogram has nearly done it. The company is conducting live surgical demonstrations of its robot for the orthopedic community and is gearing up for FDA submission.

Once the company’s robot is approved by the FDA, Monogram will launch its first-generation knee offering with generic implants. Once this has been successfully rolled out to hospitals, the company will release its second generation of implants: 3D-printed implants that closely match a patient’s anatomy and stand to disrupt this space in a major way.

Let’s break our analysis of Monogram into three parts: