RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Officials at TransEnterix announce that surgeons at hospitals across the United States now are treating patients with the company’s proprietary SPIDER® Surgical System.

Starting last week, surgeons used the platform to perform a wide variety of multi-specialty procedures ranging from gallbladder removal to weight-loss gastric banding to colon resections.

With the successful deployment of the SPIDER Surgical System, TransEnterix is doing more than introducing a new medical device, said Todd M. Pope, president and CEO. The company is creating an entirely new category of surgery, Flexible Laparoscopy, which Pope described as combining the capabilities of small, catheter-based instruments with the proven techniques of traditional laparoscopic surgery.

“Despite the fact laparoscopic surgery has been around for 25 years, surgeons perform only 25 percent of all abdominal procedures that way today,” Pope said. “Efforts to make surgery less invasive stalled because of limited tools and added complexity for surgeons. Flexible Laparoscopy could significantly change how patients are treated across multiple surgical specialties.”

Surgeons insert the SPIDER Surgical System through a single incision located within the patient’s belly button. The system opens up umbrella-like within the abdomen, providing the surgeon with two flexible channels for right- and left-hand instruments with 360-degree range of motion, and two rigid channels for small cameras and other instruments. Once the procedure is completed, the SPIDER Surgical System closes up and is removed through the same incision.

“Surgeons familiar with traditional laparoscopic techniques should adapt quickly to our system,” Pope added.

TransEnterix, a fast-growing medical device company, partners with leading medical thought-leaders to rapidly develop pioneering technologies that advance minimally invasive surgery. The company’s business model involves rapid prototyping, intense pre-clinical labs and hands-on collaboration with surgeons to accelerate learning and bring new technologies to market more quickly. TransEnterix has secured $75 million in venture capital funding.