Mendaera has found a leader with deep medical robotics experience to lead its commercialization push. Eric Davidson has taken up the chief commercial officer position at Mendaera, positioning him to apply experience gained at companies including Intuitive Surgical to the launch of a handheld robotic platform.
Davidson spent almost nine years at Intuitive, the company that effectively created and monopolized the robotic surgery market. Product marketing was Davidson’s domain for part of his time at Intuitive. When Davidson left Intuitive, he took up a position at Auris Health. Fred Moll, the robotic surgery pioneer who founded Intuitive, set up Auris and led it to a $3.4 billion takeover by Johnson & Johnson in 2019.
After the buyout, Davidson helped integrate Auris’ technology into J&J’s medtech division and became president of flexible robotics at the healthcare giant. The J&J position put Davidson in charge of more than 500 employees, according to Mendaera.
Davidson left J&J to become chief operating officer at Eko, a company that makes digital stethoscopes. Now, the exec has returned to the robotic surgery space and secured a starring role in Mendaera’s efforts to turn its handheld platform into a commercial success.
Mendaera was co-founded by two former Auris employees—and received investment from Moll—but is diverging from the blueprint laid down by Intuitive and its challengers. The startup wants to bring robotic technology to core healthcare procedures such as biopsies, vascular access and pain management that are still performed manually.
By applying robotics, artificial intelligence and imaging to those procedures, Mendaera could empower more people to safely and effectively carry out activities that are central to many healthcare pathways. The company raised $73 million to fund its vision in September. As of late 2023, Mendaera was aiming to make a submission to the FDA in 2025.