Management & Opportunity Track

In this information session based on a critical case study, Brian Gerkey from Open Robotics will discuss his organization’s work with Singapore’s Centre for Healthcare Assistive and Robotics Technology (CHART). Underway since 2018, this initiative has led to an open source robot interoperability standard called Open Robotics Middleware Framework (Open-RMF for short) and has been developed to enable communication and coordination from multiple robot vendors at a single location. In this session, attendees will learn:

The history of Open-RMF
• Specific challenges to healthcare environments
• An overview of different interoperability challenges

While the role of robotics in healthcare has been fairly well established over the last few decades, recent advancements in technology and social acceptance of collaborative applications has accelerated the development of new medical uses and adoption. Now, robots are supporting a wide variety of healthcare applications ranging from rehabilitation to surgery and on to cancer treatments. In fact, in some segments of the healthcare industry, lacking a robotic system could is a competitive disadvantage. But what does the today’s opportunity landscape look like for this industry? And how will it change with the current health crisis?

This presentation will examine the modern state of healthcare robotics, including the different technologies and current cultural drivers that are pushing for wider adoption. The speaker will draw on his experiences in the industry to provide the audience with both a detailed history of how robots have supported medical applications over the years, and how he envisions the sector evolving over time. Attendees will be provided with actionable advice they can use to identify opportunities in the healthcare robotics space, and how to prepare for the coming years.

For robotics companies, it is essential to have a strategic patent portfolio that protects and monetizes company innovations. For early-stage companies, a strong patent portfolio is key to growth and survival and can help secure venture capital (VC) or private equity (PE) funding. For large companies, the patent portfolio protects market share, and can facilitate partnership and cross-licensing opportunities. Before securing a seed, VC, PE investment, or partnership opportunities, due diligence will be required, especially around intellectual property.

In this session, a panel of leading robotics executives and investors will discuss practical strategies to build a strategic and robust patent portfolio. Panelists will address the following key points:

• Advantages of a strong patent portfolio, including establishing a competitive advantage in the marketplace, attracting funding, and gaining leverage for collaborations with other companies,
• Strategies for developing a strategic patent portfolio, including offensive and defensive strategies, taking advantages of USPTO accelerated prosecution programs, and strategies for foreign filing,
• Knowledge of the patent landscape can help companies focus on product development and patent strategy, and identify potential infringement issues,
• Best practices to identify and capture innovations, and
• What to expect during IP due diligence, as an investor, acquirer or target.

Histotechnologists are known for their 9-step, labor intensive and manual biopsy slide prep process. In the face of a national histotechnologist labor shortage, it is time to revolutionize the way pathology laboratories process biopsies. But how? By harnessing advancements in engineering, optics, robotics and AI. In this session Eric Feinstein, CEO of medical robotics company Clarapath, the design and development of SectionStar, the first, fully automated, all-in-one tissue sectioning and transfer system for non-clinical and clinical pathology laboratories that mimics the brain, eyes and hands of a human histotechnician.