A new affordable plug-and-play endoscopic imaging system called MicroCam is expected to receive FDA approval and hit the market soon. The company that developed it, Sanovas, anticipates that it will be "highly disruptive" to the endoscopy market since hospitals around the world are searching for more affordable technology.

MicroCam replaces an endoscopy cart with a small camera and a fiberoptic wiring system that can plug into almost any operating room monitor. It only costs $10,000 compared to conventional systems that can cost up to $100,000.

DOTmed News had the opportunity to chat with Larry Gerrans, co-founder, president and CEO of Sanovas, about the benefits MicroCam can bring to both the global health care system and U.S. hospital administrators.

DOTmed News: What benefits does MicroCam have the potential to bring to the worldwide health care system?

LG: MicroCam has the potential to disrupt the current paradigms of access and economics in the existing markets and to expand access to minimally invasive surgery to over 3.1 billion addressable patients in the emerging global markets.

Essentially, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has become the gold standard for western medical-based societies. The technologies have catered to a patient population of approximately 750 million middle-class workers largely comprised of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and Japanese and the upper-middle class in the other countries.

However, since the 1990s we have seen a tremendous increase in the global middle class to upwards of 3.1 billion workers. Thanks to the Internet, these workers have much more information and education at their fingertips. So, when they get sick they go online to identify a prospective solution to their ailment.

Typically, they find an MIS procedure which represents the ideal patient care solution. Then, regrettably, they find out that their local provider does not offer the service and/or the cost is astronomical. The fact is that emerging governments and their providers in these emerging markets cannot afford the exorbitant cost of the capital equipment and supplies required to deliver MIS to their respective patient populations.

Consequently, they have to leave their countries, if they can afford it, to travel to Western-based societies to get MIS surgery. However, with these countries getting wealthier, the patients can now afford health care, but the providers and governments still cannot afford the exorbitant capital acquisition costs of all of this equipment that is required to provide minimally-invasive procedures.

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