Inaugurated 2 months ago, the Genolier Innovation Hub (GIH) aims to profile itself as a major player in medical innovation in Switzerland. The investment is very substantial, with nearly 100 million francs coming mainly from the Aevis Victoria group and medical equipment manufacturers.
On Wednesday, a first conference organized at the GIH interested more than 400 people*: surgeons, directors of hospitals or research institutes and manufacturers of medical equipment.
The star of the day was the Frenchman Jacques Marescaux, pioneer of remote surgery. 23 years ago, in New York, he operated on a patient in France by controlling a robot.
Jacques Marescaux told RTS that today this practice is becoming widespread. In China since last year, thousands of remote operations have already been carried out. Also in Africa, in Rwanda and Angola, we are investing massively in remote surgery.
Robots operating alone
Daniel Christen, digestive surgeon at the Bethanien clinic, goes even further. He believes that robots are now capable of carrying out operations on their own. The main obstacle is legal: who would be responsible in the event of an operation that goes wrong?
Symposium participants also noted that robots allow for increased precision, smaller incisions and therefore faster recovery for patients.
The market for medical robot manufacturers is also booming: there was only one manufacturer 25 years ago, compared to nearly 700 today.
This opens up new avenues such as robotic rehabilitation (for the rehabilitation of patients, for example after a stroke) or even assistive robotics (companion robots for the elderly or people with disabilities).
Nicolas Rossé
Business
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