By Meghana Keshavan
Most robotic surgery devices today are hulking pieces of machinery that reach, crane-like, into a patient’s body from the outside. A new Nebraska surgical device startup is building a robotic surgery platform that’s meant to be minimally invasive – though, interestingly, it works from the inside out.
Virtual Incision Corporation‘s robot features a small, self-contained surgical device that’s inserted in its entirety through a single incision in the patient’s abdomen. It just closed an $11.2 Series A-2 round for its investigational device that morphs open surgical procedures into minimally invasive operations. 
“Our unit can be inserted into the abdomen, so it enables the surgeon to have the strength and reach and dexterity to perform the surgery with a robot, using a console at the bedside,” CEO John Murphy told MedCity News. “The unit moves in a dextrous way similar to the way your arms would move.”
The idea is to make this unit mobile, so it can be moved from OR to OR – and doesn’t require any special retrofitting to work in any given hospital. It allows surgeons to use techniques they’re already familiar with, Murphy said, and because of the device’s smaller size it will likely be cheaper than other robotic surgery tools currently on the market.