From Startup Launch to On-the-Market: Getting to and Through Initial Clinical Rollout

The 2026 Hamlyn Symposium Industry Forum will focus on one of the most consequential and phases in surgical innovation: the transition from launching the startup to and through first-in-human studies all the way to scalable, investable, globally deployable systems.

Startups must re-invent themselves many times over to successfully navigate this path.  Along it ambition meets regulatory reality; prototypes confront manufacturing constraints; clinical proof must obtained and then converted into commercial traction.

We are bringing together technical leads from companies that began life either in universities or university ecosystems, have achieved first-in-human results and are now navigating the the startup-to-scale-up transition.

Confirmed speakers include senior technical leadership from:

1. Richard Hendrick – Virtuoso Surgical (USA)
2. Bruno Scaglioni – Atlas Endoscopy (UK)
3. Joshua Gafford – EndoTheia (USA)
4. Clement Vidal – eCential Robotics

Further representation from emerging and scaling surgical robotics companies will be announced shortly.

Moderated by Prof Bob Webster (Vanderbilt University), engineer, inventor and company co-founder whose work bridges cutting-edge surgical robotics research and real-world impact, this panel will move beyond origin stories and address the engineering, clinical and organisational realities of scaling complex surgical systems. Webster serves as Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor across multiple departments at Vanderbilt, and is co-founder and President of Virtuoso Surgical and EndoTheia.

Questions the panel will tackle:

• How much open-ended research was still left after you launched your startup?
• When and how did you move through stages of research, development, manufacturing, clinical use, and scale up?
• What were the risks and technical challenges you underestimated at each stage?
• How did know you were ready for your first human case?  How did you plan it?
• What actually changed technically after first-in-man?
• What breaks first when you move from 1 system to 5?  5 systems to 50?
• How do you structure technical teams as you transition from academic-style innovation to regulated product development?
• What level of clinical evidence is required to unlock Series B?
• How early should reimbursement strategy influence engineering design?
• If you could re-engineer one early design decision, what would it be?
• What strategic decision along the way would you make differently if you had it to do over again?
• This session is designed for founders, CTOs, translational academics, investors and engineers who understand that the hardest problems in surgical robotics are no longer proof-of-concept, but translation to clinic and proof-of-scale oriented.

The Hamlyn Symposium has always been where surgical robotics research meets real-world deployment. In 2026, the Industry Forum will examine the bridge between invention and impact.