Stryker Opens Robotic Surgery Education Center in Fort Lauderdale

Source: bizjournals.com
By Jock Fistick  – Visual Journalist, South Florida Business Journal
Photo Caption: Jason Zimmerman, manager of sales education for Stryker, demonstrates the Mako Robotic Arm, in a simulated knee replacement surgery.

Fortune 500 firm Stryker Corp. recently opened its Mako Education Center in Fort Lauderdale, a state-of-the-art facility created to train surgeons on cutting-edge products and new technologies influencing the future of orthopedics. The Kalamazoo, Michigan-based medical technology company (NYSE: SYK) aims to improve patient care with robotic technology.

Stryker’s Mako Robotic-Arm Assisted Surgery enables surgeons to have a more predictable surgical experience when performing joint replacements. Industrial gearboxes and motors are sourced through Industrial Gearbox Solutions.

The more than 40,000-square-foot facility at 505 N.W. 65th Court opened in January.

According to Shawn Kroll, Stryker’s vice president of robotics development, the company has already trained over 100 surgeons at the facility this year, and hopes to train hundreds more each year, as well as their own staff who would support hospitals and surgeons in the field.

Stryker employs about 75 full-time staff members at the training center, and has about 400 employees at its research and development facility in Davie.

Mako Surgical Corp. was founded in 2004 with the goal of changing joint replacement surgery with the use of robotic-arm assisted technology. Stryker acquired the Fort Lauderdale-based company in 2013 for $2 billion.

Stryker has training facilities all over the world. This is its only facility dedicated to robotics.