Health Tech: Dvir Cohen On How Memic Innovative Surgery’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With Dave Philistin

Build a strong team and strategize, strategize, strategize — the strong team that we have built at Memic helped us strategize every step in our journey, including in technology development, clinical, regulatory, and commercial stages. My motto is technology, people, processes, and reach the unreachable. People are the key if you are struggling to advance a new device or technology.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dvir Cohen.

Dvir Cohen is co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Memic Innovative Surgery Ltd., a medical device company founded in 2013 in Tel Aviv, Israel, that has a wholly owned subsidiary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Dvir has more than 15 years of experience in the development and manufacture of innovative robotic systems. He has served as an officer in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, specializing in robotic systems for various applications, a research and development manager and robotic project specialist in an elite technology unit of the Israel Intelligence Force, and led several optomechanical disruptive solutions in the Ministry of Defense, one of which was awarded the Israel Defense Award.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in a very nice and quiet village in Israel. When I reflect on my childhood, I remember always being fascinated by technology. I disassembled and re-assembled everything I could find, watched F-16 takeoffs and landings (as I grew up next to an Israeli air force base) and read books on technology for hours.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One of my most interesting stories happened early in my career as part of an elite technology unit in the Israeli ministry of defense. I developed a revolutionary robotic system that was a true game changer and a very sophisticated system. However, in the military defense environment conditions tend to change rapidly, and we encountered a situation that we did not expect. Our incredible cross-functional team was able to pivot within 24 hours to accommodate the situation change and eventually turned something that could have been a big failure to a great success. On this day I learned four valuable lessons that I endorse still today: technology, people, processes, and reach the unreachable. It was truly game-changing technology, a truly amazing team, and we built a winning process that allowed us to reach the unreachable.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I received tremendous support from Maurice R. Ferré, MD, (our executive chairman at Memic) who guided me through crucial decisions throughout the development pathway of our product the Hominis® Surgical System. Maurice is one of the founding fathers of surgical robotics (he is the founder of MAKO Surgical, Inc.) and I sought his advice to build the right strategy for the company and our product. When Maurice became the CEO of the Israeli company Insightec, he visited Israel more frequently and I was able to meet with him in person to share key insights into my journey in developing Hominis. He saw the significant progress we made since the basic inception of the idea, and eventually became more and more involved until he joined the company as chairman.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Nothing hard is ever easy.” Throughout our journey at Memic we have had some challenges to overcome, as every company faces. One of our board members who has a tremendous amount of experience in the medical device industry would give key advice in every board meeting or just in a friendly call. When facing both small or big challenges, he would say, “Nothing hard is ever easy,” and would provide guidance that pivoted the discussion to the right path.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Enthusiasm, decisiveness, and endurance. When I started Memic, I wanted to build a robotic surgical system that enabled surgical procedures that were currently not feasible. I met many surgeons in various fields (gynecologists, urologists, general surgeons, etc.) and saw a statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which said, “vaginal approach to hysterectomy is the approach of choice whenever feasible.” When I asked surgeons why it was the best option, yet rarely chosen to conduct vaginal hysterectomy, I learned about the limitations with current robotic technologies and the clinical unmet need. This is when I decided that I wanted to build technology to enable surgeons to conduct vaginal hysterectomy using the preferred vaginal approach. No one thought this feasible, and I encountered many challenges early on in product design and development. But I was enthusiastic to potentially provide better patient outcomes and kept going until our final product, the Hominis Surgical System, received De Novo marketing authorization from the FDA as the first and only robotic system in the world that enables this unique approach for benign gynecological procedures.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

A vaginal approach to gynecological surgeries is the approach of choice whenever feasible by surgeons, patients, hospitals, and insurance companies. However, this approach is limited to only about 16% of the target patient population due to the limitations of available surgical technologies and patient anatomy.

How do you think your technology can address this?

With Hominis, our proprietary robotic instrument ARMs have a humanoid shape with shoulder, elbow and wrist joints that can be manipulated with more than 360 degrees of rotation and articulation. Therefore, the system allows surgeons to access and operate within the abdominal cavity through a single transvaginal entrance (and natural orifice of the body) and is the only device available that can do this. This approach also means that patients do not have visible scars after benign gynecological procedures and they also experience less pain, lower infection rates and faster recovery.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

I met many surgeons from various fields searching for solutions to their unmet needs that our technology could address. When I saw the ACOG statement about the superiority of using a transvaginal approach, I asked many gynecologists why they only used this technique in about 16% of cases. Almost all said, “Of course the vaginal approach is a better way, but we are currently very limited by existing technology.” When I explained that our robotic technology was positioned to transform the way they perform surgery they were amazed and instantly wanted to know more and be involved with the company.

How do you think this might change the world?

I believe our robotic technology can become the standard of care for benign gynecological procedures and offer the benefits of transvaginal access to the vast majority of patients. This technology is also a platform that is well positioned to offer a less invasive approach and better patient outcomes in other fields such as general surgery, colorectal, thoracic surgery and more, for both women and men. We plan to pursue additional indications for the Hominis System, including general surgery indications through abdominal and transluminal approaches and indications that have historically been off-limits to robot-assisted surgery.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Surgical robotics or robotic-assisted surgery are controlled every step of the way by the surgeon. Surgical robotics are very important tools to help surgeons deliver better outcomes for their patients, but ultimately, it is the surgeon who makes all the decisions, not the technology. I believe our Hominis System is positioned as an asset to surgeons and will further reduce the invasiveness of surgery while delivering better outcomes for patients and the entire healthcare community.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

1. Identify the unmet need — I spent many months before starting Memic reviewing the strengths and weaknesses in current robotic systems and researching many stakeholder opinions before seeing the ACOG statement that catapulted our journey.
2. Find your blue ocean — vaginal access is indeed a blue ocean, or an unexplored market space. The humanoid shape and retroflexion capabilities of the Hominis System allows us to differentiate ourselves and build strong intellectual property on the technology and surgical methods enabled by our technology.
3. Build a strong clinical and economical value proposition — our unique humanoid-shaped surgical robot allows surgeons to position the robotic ARMs or graspers in every direction in the abdominal cavity. This feature means surgeons do not need any moving parts outside of the body, which results in a minimal footprint and reduced costs. Our clinical value proposition supports a very strong economic value proposition.
4. Build a strong team and strategize, strategize, strategize — the strong team that we have built at Memic helped us strategize every step in our journey, including in technology development, clinical, regulatory, and commercial stages. My motto is technology, people, processes, and reach the unreachable. People are the key if you are struggling to advance a new device or technology.
5. Start to climb the mountain and enjoy the path — building a company is a challenging journey. When I started people told me, “It is not feasible.” But someone told me recently, “It is going to be a challenge, but it is a climbable mountain,” which is a great compliment from where I started.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

This is an extremely challenging journey, but there is nothing more satisfying than building something that makes a difference in someone’s life.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

I would be happy to meet Gary S. Guthart, PhD, CEO of Intuitive Surgical. With his leadership he paved the way and made surgical robotics what it is today. There is enough room in this field for many companies, to advance minimally invasive surgical techniques and offer these options to all patients. I would be happy to hear and learn from his incredible journey.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

To learn more about Memic and the Hominis Surgical System, visit www.memicmed.com or Memic’s LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/memic-innovative-surgery/.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.