Roen Surgical, a South Korean surgical-robot platform company, said on November 12 that it successfully demonstrated remote control of its kidney-stone surgery robot Zamenix across roughly 450 kilometers, with a surgeon in Jeju operating the device housed at the company's Gasan office in Seoul1,2.
Park Geon-hyeon, head of the Department of Urology at Jeju Jungang Hospital, operated the surgeon console installed at the Jeju hospital to control Zamenix remotely. The research team performed the full kidney-stone surgical workflow: endoscopic remote access, stone localization, laser lithotripsy, and stone aspiration and extraction using suction, a technique the company calls FANS. The demonstration lasted about one hour and concluded without network instability or emergency control intervention, according to the company.
The procedure was conducted on Vital Uro, a urological endoscopic surgery simulator developed by Roen Surgical, not on an actual patient. The event was part of a broader demonstration running from November 10 to 13.
Platform and autonomy features
Zamenix integrates control of a 3-millimeter-diameter flexible endoscopic robot and surgical instruments, including a basket and laser fiber, on a single platform. The company said the robot's respiratory compensation function and autopilot function operated normally in the remote setting.
Market and regulatory footing
Roen Surgical plans to use the demonstration results as proof of concept as it targets remote healthcare markets in the Middle East, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Zamenix has been adopted by 23 hospitals in South Korea and one institution overseas. Jeju Jungang Hospital became the first medical institution in Jeju to adopt Zamenix in April. In South Korea, Zamenix was designated the 17th Innovative Medical Device in 2021 and has been approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare for non-reimbursed use as an innovative medical technology. The robot has also received Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance in the United States.
ANALYSIS The demonstration positions Zamenix's telesurgery capability as a differentiator for markets where specialist access is limited by geography, though the gap between a simulator-based proof of concept and regulatory clearance for live remote procedures remains substantial.