by Stacy Lawrence | Sep 28, 2016

Verb Surgical is working on what it sees as “Surgery 4.0”: the next iteration of surgery that incorporates robotics, advanced visualization, machine learning, data analytics and connectivity. It expects that its technology could translate into real access for billions globally who currently don’t have access to surgery by lowering costs and reducing the training threshold.

Along with Johnson & Johnson’s ($JNJ) Ethicon and Alphabet’s ($GOOG) Verily, Verb expects to have a fully working prototype surgical system by year end. Ethicon already divulged earlier this year that there was a prototype of the robotic system. A surgical system isn’t expected to be on the market, though, until 2020.

“We envision a future in surgery where we move from having a mainframe computer to a PC on every desk to a cell phone in every pocket,” Verb President and CEO Scott Huennekens toldFierceMedicalDevices. “Everybody has access at a much lower cost with a much lower threshold for training.”

He said that Ethicon is specifically contributing its surgical instrumentation, while Verily and Google are bringing to the table data analytics and machine learning tech. The expectation is that these surgical systems will talk to each other–and learn systematically.

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