[ad_1]
FundamentalVR, an immersive simulation platform for medical and healthcare professions, has raised $20 million in a round of funding to “accelerate skills transfer and surgical efficiency” through virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) applications.
Despite its decades-long promise, VR hasn’t traveled far beyond gaming circles or industrial use cases, though that’s something Meta and its Big Tech ilk are pushing hard to change. However, among the industries they have Long-embraced VR is medicine and healthcare. For example, in In 2009, a neurosurgeon in Canada performed what was believed to be the world’s first dry run of real brain tumor surgery using a VR-based simulator. More recently, VR has been used in all kinds of healthcare settings, from treating social anxiety and other mental health conditions to surgical training.
Big impact
Medical simulation serves as a strong example of how VR and related MR systems are making a meaningful societal impact away from the mainstream. Such technologies are routinely used to train new doctors or to help surgeons maintain existing skills and learn new procedures. Data from Research and Markets indicates that the healthcare and medical simulation market is a $2 billion industry today, a figure that will double in five years – and this is something that FundamentalVR is looking to capitalize on.
In the year Founded in London in 2012, FundamentalVR is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that combines VR with haptics to enable medical practitioners to access training for procedures such as orthopedic/spine procedures; Anterior total hip replacement (A-THR); posterior total hip replacement (P-THR); total knee replacement (TKA); Facetectomies; More.
The core of the company’s so-called basic surgical platform is what it calls HapticVR, which makes virtual procedures lifelike with physical sensory feedback – HapticVR is compatible with haptic gloves and purpose-built controllers.
Basic VR: Eye Gene Therapy Simulation
It is worth noting that the company can Certain partners and institutions provide the hardware when required as part of a commercial agreement, but for the most part FundamentalVR is an engine and interface for companies’ existing hardware – this includes VR headsets like Oculus Quest and HTC Vive. MR platforms like HoloLens and Magic Leap.
“It’s designed to be hardware-agnostic, and can be easily paired with any laptop, VR headset, and haptic devices available on Amazon’s open market or at specialty electronics stores,” FundamentalVR CEO Richard Vincent told TechCrunch. “This makes the solutions very scalable and affordable.”
On top of that, FundamentalVR also allows an unlimited number of users to interact in virtual rooms and operating theaters around the world.
Basic VR: Multi-user functionality
Positive feedback
There are several players in the burgeoning medical simulation space, such as Medical Realities, ImmersiveTouch and OssoVR, the latter of which recently closed a $66 million round of funding. However, Vincent’s more universal life-like haptics are what truly differentiates them – cutaneous (tactile vibrations) with kinetics, which includes force, feedback and spatial haptics.
“Surgery is a multi-skill – it’s critical to enable the surgeon to learn and perform procedures and to have the necessary touch to truly acquire surgical skills,” Vincent said. “However, not all haptics are created equal, and there is a big difference between skin and kinetic haptics technology and how to use it. While VR simulations with skin feedback are already well suited for medical education and training, the addition of ‘full power’ haptics now enables acquisition of skills.
FundamentalVR’s customers include medical facilities, device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies that market new treatments — including Swiss-American multinational Novartis, which uses FundamentalVR to develop haptic simulation for subretinal injections. Other clients include the Mayo Clinic, NYU Langone and UCLA in the US. UCLH and Imperial College in the UK; and Sana Clinic, a network of teaching hospitals in Germany.
FundamentalVR’s latest funding round was led by EQT Life Sciences, with participation Downing Ventures. The company has now raised a total of over $30 million.
[ad_2]
Source link
