ShugeSight Medical: Pioneering Smart Minimally Invasive Surgery with Ultrasonic Scalpel Innovation and Robotic Instrument Ecosystem
On January 20, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Feng Gengchao, General Manager of SurgScience, focusing on the company’s development philosophy, strategic planning, technological innovation, market strategy, commercialization progress, and future direction.
Regarding the company’s strategic planning, Feng Gengchao and other core team members share a clear and consistent vision: leveraging innovative R&D in foundational materials, intelligent algorithms, and core processes, they will pursue a dual-axis strategy. Vertically (Y-axis), they will rely on the ultrasonic energy technology platform to develop a series of ultrasonic energy-based therapeutic devices, such as ultrasonic scalpels for pediatric surgery, neurosurgery, and specialized surgical robots. Horizontally (X-axis), they will depend on the intelligent minimally invasive surgery platform to develop a range of smart surgical tools, including intelligent ultrasonic scalpels, staplers, suturing devices, clip appliers, and intelligent electrosurgical units.
When asked why SurgScience chose to enter the medical device market with ultrasonic scalpels, Feng Gengchao expressed full confidence and a firm tone: “We started with ultrasonic scalpels because the domestic market is largely monopolized by imported products, and there is still a certain gap between Chinese-made ultrasonic scalpels and their imported counterparts.”SurgScience, after years of research and development,Breakthroughs have been achieved in the core components, core materials, core algorithms, and core processes of ultrasonic surgical devices., which can significantly improve and optimize the performance of domestically produced ultrasonic scalpels, creating more opportunities to capture the global market for ultrasonic scalpels.”
SurgScience’s ultrasonic scalpel product, which was initiated in 2018, achieved regulatory approval for market launch and won bids in the centralized procurement program in 2021, all within just four years.. In December 2021, the results of the volume-based procurement for medical consumables, including ultrasonic scalpels, conducted across 16 alliance regions such as Guangdong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Fujian were announced: SurgScience’s ultrasonic scalpel products successfully won the bid.
SurgScience believes: “The recent approval of SurgScience’s ultrasonic scalpel for inclusion in volume-based procurement (VBP) not only accelerates hospital market access and facilitates rapid engagement with hospitals in VBP regions, but also lays the foundation for future sales volume growth across its product portfolio, marking a significant breakthrough for this emerging brand. Furthermore, all core materials used by SurgScience are independently developed and manufactured in-house.Significant cost advantage with stable and controllable supply, holding a dominant position in the volume-based procurement program.”
Currently, multiple companies in China have established R&D and strategic layouts in the field of ultrasonic scalpels, resulting in intense market competition. However, the core materials and components of domestically produced ultrasonic scalpels are largely monopolized by imported brands, making it difficult for Chinese-made products to surpass their imported counterparts.
For instance, most ultrasonic scalpel tips currently available on the market are made of titanium alloy. However, due to the poor high-cycle fatigue life of titanium alloy, clinicians have to reduce the activation power to enhance procedural safety and minimize tip fracture. This compromise results in a slower cutting speed for domestically produced ultrasonic scalpels compared to imported counterparts. On the other hand, the low acoustic transmission efficiency of titanium alloy leads to unstable tip temperatures and suboptimal hemostatic performance, which has been a major clinical criticism of domestic products.
Furthermore, the transducer, a core component of ultrasonic surgical devices, relies heavily on imported high-performance piezoelectric ceramic materials. Weak capabilities in independent transducer design have resulted in homogeneous product forms and insufficient product innovation.
To address the aforementioned challenges, SurgScience has deployed an R&D team of over 50 professionals and collaborated with multiple domestic research institutes to conduct targeted breakthroughs in foundational materials, including titanium alloys, high-performance piezoelectric ceramics, and anti-tissue adhesion coatings. Meanwhile, the company has intensified its R&D efforts in manufacturing processes and core control algorithms.
After four years of intensive research and development, SurgScience has successfully secured funding for two major projects, obtained more than 20 domestic and international patents, resolved critical bottlenecks in core materials such as titanium alloys and high-performance piezoelectric ceramics, and independently developed the core algorithms and manufacturing processes for ultrasonic scalpels.。
SurgScience independently develops and manufactures core materials, not only breaking the overseas technological monopoly on foundational materials but also significantly reducing the overall production cost of ultrasonic scalpels. This reduction in production costs will promote the widespread adoption of ultrasonic scalpel products and surgical procedures, ultimately benefiting more patients in China.
For the company, reduced production costs will enable SurgScience to gain a competitive edge in volume-based procurement and strengthen its position in market competition.
Feng Gengchao stated, “With mastery of foundational materials and core technologies, we can rapidly develop a variety of innovative, specialty-specific products tailored to clinical needs, such as ultrasonic scalpels dedicated to pediatric surgery, neurosurgery, and surgical robots. This is also the key advantage enabling SurgScience to accelerate its product development.”
Compared with other ultrasonic scalpel products on the market, SurgScience’s ultrasonic scalpel adopts independently developed high-performance piezoelectric ceramic technology, which significantly enhances the performance of the ultrasonic handpiece. It also utilizes independently developed titanium alloy materials, giving the ultrasonic scalpel tip a higher fatigue life and superior acoustic transmission efficiency. This results in fast cutting speed, excellent stability, high energy conversion efficiency at the tip, low temperature generation, and outstanding vessel sealing performance.
Furthermore, SurgScience has adopted a proprietary blade structure and optimized the atomization direction, atomization position, and intelligent temperature control algorithms, resulting in reduced mist generation and lower operating temperatures during ultrasonic scalpel procedures. Notably, SurgScience’s independently developed AI control algorithms address challenges related to real-time resonance, digital frequency tracking, digital impedance matching, tissue-adaptive cutting, and large vessel sealing, thereby making ultrasonic scalpel surgeries safer, more precise, and more efficient.
SurgScience plans to enter the market with ultrasonic scalpels, aiming to build the company into a platform for intelligent minimally invasive surgical instruments. Currently, leveraging its foundational materials and ultrasonic energy platform, SurgScience has vertically developed a range of products, including 7mm ultrasonic scalpels, pediatric-specific ultrasonic scalpels, neurosurgery-specific ultrasonic scalpels, surgical robot-compatible ultrasonic scalpels, and veterinary ultrasonic scalpels.
Feng Gengchao stated, “The decision to simultaneously enter the pet healthcare market is driven by its rapid growth, which significantly contributes to the company’s revenue. Additionally, leveraging its advantages in foundational materials and core algorithms, SurgScience has achieved remarkably rapid development of its ultrasonic scalpel products.”
Leveraging the high-quality performance advantages of its ultrasonic scalpel products, SurgScience will achieve sustained and rapid revenue growth. Building on this strong revenue base, SurgScience will increase its R&D investment to develop an intelligent minimally invasive surgery platform centered around smart electric tools such as laparoscopes, staplers, clip appliers, and suturing devices.
Feng Gengchao stated, “To date, SurgScience has initiated the regulatory registration and filing for products such as hemostatic clips and staplers, and has also commenced R&D on a variety of intelligent minimally invasive surgical devices. It is expected that in the near future, SurgScience will become a leading domestic platform for intelligent minimally invasive surgical instruments.”
As surgical robots are increasingly adopted in clinical practice, SurgScience has entered the fray. However, unlike other companies developing surgical robots, SurgScience has taken a different path by primarily providing a series of intelligent surgical tools specifically designed for surgical robots. Currently, SurgScience has launched products dedicated to surgical robots, including fully electric ultrasonic scalpels, fully electric intelligent staplers, and fully electric suturing devices. In the future, the company plans to develop more instruments and consumables compatible with surgical robots.
Feng Gengchao stated, “We firmly believe that professionals should focus on their areas of expertise. SurgScience’s strength lies in the research and development innovation of surgical instruments and consumables, rather than in the development of surgical robotic systems. Therefore, we will leverage our R&D advantages to provide supporting instruments and consumables for surgical robots, collaborating with surgical robotics companies to deliver intelligent operating rooms for clinical practice.”
From ultrasonic scalpels and staplers to specialized instruments for surgical robots, SurgScience’s extensive portfolio of intelligent minimally invasive surgical devices is closely tied to its team. According to reports, the company’s R&D team consists primarily of individuals with master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral degrees, most of whom graduated from prestigious universities such as Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, and the University of Hong Kong.
For example, the titanium alloy materials technology team at SurgScience is primarily composed of PhDs and postdoctoral researchers from Tsinghua University, who specialized in titanium alloy materials during their doctoral studies and possess extensive theoretical knowledge and R&D experience.
SurgScience to Launch New Round of Financing to Further Drive Product R&D, Regulatory Filings, Market Promotion, and Capacity Expansion。