Singapore’s NDR Medical secures US$ 5.8M

NDR Medical Technology, a Singapore-based surgical robotic company, announced it has raised US$ 5.8M (SGD$ 8M) in its Series A round of investment.

The round was led by Chinese medical company MicroPort Scientific Corporation. This marks MicroPort’s maiden equity investment in Singapore. Kava Ventures, a partnership founded by the owners of Transmedic, and existing investor SGInnovate also participated in the round.

NDR will use the additional capital for the expansion into the U.S., and regulatory submission across other major markets. Additionally, the funds will enhance the team’s technical capabilities and explore other clinical applications for the product.

About NDR Medical

Founded in 2014 by Alan Goh and Jason Ng, NDR Medical has developed a system known as Automated Needle Targeting. The system is for robotic-guided access to obtain precise targeting. Through Artificial Intelligence and medical image processing, the system identifies the targeted lesion and performs insertion trajectory planning. The process is done with a robot executing a range of motion to help surgeons obtain more accurate access.

The results of NDR’s ongoing clinic trial in Japan, Singapore, China and a few other Southeast Asia countries have shown that the 5-year survival rates of early-stage lung cancer patients with timely diagnoses and treatment exceeds those of advanced-stage patients. The ANT-C robotics system assist physicians to perform CT-guided operations more precisely, boosting the accuracy of Percutaneous biopsy, which is one of the most popular methods for the diagnosis of lung cancer. Compared to conventional manual needle positioning, the application of the ANT-X robotics system could reduce the complexity, shorten physicians’ learning curve, increase procedure accuracy and minimise complications, which will benefit the patients with kidney stone and ureteral stone. Therefore, it reduces complications and widens the access of precise diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer.

Statements from NDR

Alan Goh, Co-founder and CEO of NDR, said that “NDR will be able to accelerate our growth plans in Asia with greater assurance, fulfilling our vision of ensuring safer surgical procedures with better clinical outcome” as they now have “MicroPort as our strategic investor alongside Kava Ventures that has rich commercial experience in distributing surgical robotic systems.”

Future plans

NDR plans to establish a joint venture in China with MicroPort Urocare, a subsidiary of MicroPort. This venture will advance the Singaporean company’s entry into China by tapping on existing networks and engineering resources.

Additionally, NDR is continuing to develop the system for other imaging modalities and medical applications.