Built in Miami: The robots revolutionizing dental surgery

Meet a Miami-based medical tech company that designs and manufactures surgical robots for dentists

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NEOCIS makes surgical robots for dentistry. Get an inside look at their Wynwood headquarters in our latest On Site video series. Watch here. 

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The Jetsons painted a vivid vision of our future, from flying cars to robot housekeepers. And some of this future is already here, with robots assisting humans on assembly lines at Amazon distribution centers or making fast-food orders. 

Robots are also in our hospitals assisting doctors with some medical procedures. Medical robotics, after all, is big business. The global market is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry in the next few years. The same is true for the U.S. dental market, thanks to technological advancements and the demand for a hand in minimally invasive surgeries. 

NEOCIS is a Miami-based company tapping into this growing demand by designing and manufacturing surgical robots for dentists. Take a look in our latest On Site video series which you can watch here.

“Dental implants are a huge market. There are millions of implants being placed just in the U.S. every year,” explains Alon Mozes, CEO and co-founder of NEOCIS.

One of their robots is Yomi, which has artificial intelligence to help surgeons first map out their cases for dental implants and then use the actual robot and advanced hardware to ensure the plan is executed smoothly.

Yomi is the first and only robotic surgical system approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with over 200 of them deployed across the country that have assisted in over 40,000 implants so far. Mozes estimates that a dental implant is placed with Yomi about every six minutes.

To be clear, the dentist still operates the Yomi during the implant procedure. 

“We know there's a special, clinical judgment that dentists bring that we don't want to eliminate,” Mozes clarified. “We want to enhance it.”  

A RETURN TO MIAMI

NEOCIS started in 2009 in a co-working space in Brickell and has since seen tremendous growth. The company now occupies a 30,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Wynwood housing everyone from engineering to product quality teams. They have raised over $200 million to date. Most recently they raised over $20 million in funding led by NVIDIA.

Mozes grew up in Miami and is a proud Miami-Dade County Public Schools system graduate. He left to study at MIT and then worked in Silicon Valley for a few years before returning to Miami. He received a PhD in biomedical imaging from the University of Miami and worked at a startup called Mako Surgical when he saw the opportunity to change the dental industry. 

It is worth noting that his father is a retired dentist who practiced in Miami for four decades. But Mozes said it was Miami’s local talent that propelled the company’s expansion.

“We think there’s a ton of talent here and a ton of interest in the world’s best talent coming here,” he said. So there was “an opportunity to really build all of it here.” 

AI IN EDUCATION

We are hosting our fifth Academic Leaders Council event on September 18th at Miami Dade College to discuss the future of education and artificial intelligence. The ALC comprises the presidents of the six major colleges and universities and the Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.  

Registration for the event is required. Register now. 

GERMAN CLIMATE TECH COMES TO MIAMI

You can also join us for our 12th climate tech meetup on September 19th at The Beacon Council. These meetups are a partnership with Miami-Dade County. This one includes startups from the German Accelerator's U.S. Market Discovery Climate Tech program. You can register here. 

PITCH US 

If you have a company or entrepreneur to suggest or an idea to share that relates to building Miami’s future, email us at next@opportunity.miami. We invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on our social media channels. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe by clicking here. And if you are new to Opportunity Miami, you can learn about our mission and work here. 

Hope to hear from you. 

– Suzette