Surgical robots, Mayor Scott and more to appear at first Galen Robotics open house

Johns Hopkins University spinout Galen Robotics will showcase its next generation of surgical robots during its first-ever open house in Pigtown this Friday.

The biomedical robotics startup’s event will take place at its headquarters in the 1100 Wicomico building from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. A statement notes that this open house reflects the company’s commitment to making its products “widely available, particularly to underserved communities.” Galen Robotics has already financially backed the Baltimore Bolts student robotics team and offered internships to local students.

Galen Robotics plans to make its surgical tech more widely available to hospitals that service underserved communities through a digital surgery as a Service (DSaaS) model. This refers to a shared-risk model that allows hospitals to purchase the company’s equipment with a per-usage fee, the statement said.

In addition, the company’s participation in the federal Opportunity Zone program enabled its anchoring in Baltimore, to which it officially relocated after having previously been based in Silicon Valley. Galen Robots initially began in 2016 to commercialize the technology developed in Johns Hopkins’ Laboratory of Computational Sensing and Robotics.

The statement noted that several “politicians and other key figures” who facilitated the relocation from California will be in attendance. Other attendees include Galen Robotics’s own executives (who will conduct manufacturing facility tours and robot demos) and representatives from such business and tech stakeholders as Johns Hopkins, the Maryland Tech Council, the Greater Baltimore Tech Council and the Baltimore Development Corporation.  Mayor Brandon Scott will also appear and deliver remarks around 11:30 a.m.

Learn more about the surgical robots that will be on display through this video demo: