The Digital Brain of Surgery: How AI Is Changing the Operating Room with Dr. Nicolas Bourdel, Founder and CEO of SurgAR

[00:00:03] Hello everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket reporting live from SRS in Hollywood, Florida. I'm excited to be here with Dr. Nicolas Bourdel. He is the founder and CEO of SurgAR. So excited to have you here, Nicolas. Nicolas Bourdel Thank you for hosting me. I'm really happy to be here also. Yeah, you flew in from France.

[00:00:26] We are in the middle of France and we are based in a company that came from academic research. All the stories started with the academic research and with the combination of really clinical settings. I'm from one of the birthplace of minimally invasive vasodilies, specifically in gynecology.

[00:00:49] The first extraordinary pregnancy was performed in Clermont-Ferrand in my department a long year ago. Wow. Wow. So you are in a place that has history in robotics. Exactly. History of innovation. So that's why I think I was quite aware about innovation.

[00:01:08] And behind the story, there's also partnership with, at the very beginning, the surgeon. So I'm really in this ecosystem of innovation where I come from. That's great. That's great. Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor? No. No? Honestly, that was the last moment choice. Oh, really?

[00:01:29] Yeah. And he liked it and I loved it. So, I mean, it was quite natural. But maybe that's why I shift to entrepreneurship and a new way of innovation, a different way of innovation. But I'm still having my surgical practice. Okay. All right. Very good. Very good. So tell us a little bit about sugar. And is sugar with a capital A-R?

[00:01:52] Yeah. So it's surgical augmented reality. So really, we are a company dedicated to really augment every surgeon using the best of computer vision and artificial intelligence. Okay. So what we do, roughly, is we take the digital twin of the patient coming from the CT scan or MRI. Okay. So it's DICOM image. Yeah.

[00:02:17] So it's 2D image. With this 2D image, we will build a digital twin of the organs we want to focus on. Uterus, kidney, liver. Then during surgery, for minimally invasive surgery, of course you have a camera. We've got this video stream and fuse it in real time with a digital twin. Yeah.

[00:02:37] So that means the surgeon can see through the organs. It can really see the exact localization of a tumor inside a mobile and deformable organs. Actually, there's many solutions on hard tissue, but nothing else on soft tissue. We are the only CE approved device for augmented reality for minimally invasive surgery. For soft tissue. For soft tissue. Yeah. Yeah. There's many other solutions for hard tissue. Yeah. Bones. But yeah.

[00:03:08] Fantastic. Well, that's an interesting differentiation point there. Exactly. So then when you go in to do your procedure, walk me through what that looks like. That they've done their scan. Are they wearing glasses? What are they looking at? How is it on a classical tree? Okay. But you're right. That was quite a hard choice. Do we have to wear glasses? But finally, in terms of regulatory and practical approach, we need something robust.

[00:03:35] And we need something that is agnostic to what is already in the OR. Okay. So that means we build our own card with a GPU inside. Okay. It's an NVIDIA technology. Yeah. So you arrive with your card in the OR, you plug it to the laparoscopic tower, robotic tower, whatever, and then you can get the augmented reality on our screen. Okay.

[00:04:00] But of course, we can re-inject the augmented reality on the classical screen of the OR, whatever. We can display it everywhere. Okay. But we don't need glass. Okay. We use the video stream of the minimally invasive surgery hardware. Understood. Okay. So you're looking at that and you're getting an appreciation of the imaging. Exactly. That means our computer, and it's a software-based, of course, solution.

[00:04:28] That means our computer can understand the operative field. You recognize there's a uterus, there's the kidney, and it can recognize the shape of the organs. That means it's part of the digital intelligence. So you can understand the field and then add information in this field. Right place, right moment. Yes. There's many other solutions on virtual reality, but we are the next step.

[00:04:55] Putting the digital twin into the OR. Actual OR. Actual OR in real time. And of course, it's patient specific. The digital twin with the tumor of the patient. I love that. I was listening. I forget what it was, but it was like a podcast that I was listening to. And it was actually about mining and how in mining, it's blind. They're going in blind. They don't know what's underneath and they blast to find the OR.

[00:05:22] But now there's technology that can help understand what kind of metals are under the ground. And I feel like that's... Hey, where's the tumor? Yeah, exactly. See the invisible. Yeah. Guide the surgeon. Make the procedure safer and faster. That's really our objective. That's fantastic. Make every surgeon an augmented surgeon. I love that a lot. So what brings you to SRS? As a surgeon, innovation, new robots. This is like Disneyland free.

[00:05:51] Honestly, academic, in an academic position, you are not used to go to this kind of Congress. So it's more like very, with a strong separation between medical part and exhibit part. And here, this is a good mix. Half of the attendees are from industry. The other half as medical doctor or engineers or the investors. So that's really... It's like this... You are in the heart of the ecosystem.

[00:06:20] Is it Disneyland for robotics? Surgical robotics? Disneyland, I mean... What's the analog? What's the... CES, I will say. Okay, I can go with that. I would prefer this compared to... It's the CES of surgical robotics. Yeah, one part of it. I like that a lot, actually. That's better. That's better. That's better. As you look ahead to the future, what do you see as the future of surgical robotics? So, when I start surgery, there was only eyes in the arm. Digital eyes.

[00:06:50] Then we shift to arm. So we have the eyes, we have the arm, not everywhere, but almost everywhere. And now we shift to brain, digital brain. Of course, there is a brain of the surgeon. Of course. We shift to digital brain and software-based. So it's a huge change. Eyes first, arm, and now the brain. And there's huge possibilities of enhancement of the quality of the procedure.

[00:07:18] Whatever is the level of the surgeon. So that's a completely different approach. I like that a lot. The brain. And sort of the intelligence that accompanies the surgeon in their procedures to raise the standard. Exactly. Overall. Reduce variability. That's really good. Nicholas, this is fantastic. What about the future of sugar? Like, talk to us about where you guys are going and what people can expect. Yeah.

[00:07:43] So now we're really focused on kidney solution before like cancer of the kidney. Oh, interesting. Yeah, partial nephrectomy mainly. So it's really a challenging surgery. That's where we want to focus on. With first the clinical proof, then at the same time getting the CE approval. We already are CE approved, but for the uterus.

[00:08:07] We want to be CE approved for the kidney and work of course on regulatory process in the US with the FDA. So we are looking for strategic partnerships and of course, investment. You need money to make this happen. Exactly. We need money. As usual. Well look, that's awesome. I really appreciate you coming to share your vision. If people wanted to learn more about you and the company, where can they go? You can reach me at my LinkedIn page. And that's the easiest way. Fantastic.

[00:08:37] All right. Well, there you have it folks. Dr. Nicolas Bourdel. He is the founder and CEO of Sugar in the show notes. We'll leave his LinkedIn as well as all the ways to learn more about SRS and the things happening here at the conference. Dr. Bourdel. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you very much.