US-based ZAP Surgical Systems has secured $78m in a financing round led by and in partnership with Chinese healthcare company Qingdao Baheal Medical. The funds will be used to further the manufacturing, sales, and distribution efforts of ZAP Surgical’s ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery platform.
The ZAP-X platform is a robotic device designed to perform non-invasive stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) procedures to treat brain tumours, lesions, and other conditions of the head and neck.
According to ZAP Surgical, the platform’s gyroscopic movement enables radiosurgical beams to be directed from thousands of potential angles for precise tumour targeting and prioritises the protection of healthy brain tissue and aims to preserve patient cognitive function.
The company previously completed an $81m fundraise led by Primavera Capital in 2020.
ZAP Surgical founder and CEO John R. Adler commented: “We founded ZAP Surgical to address a clear need: enabling more patients to access state-of-the-art radiosurgery without the prohibitive costs and infrastructure requirements that limit so many providers.
“This partnership with Baheal Medical perfectly aligns with our mission, providing ZAP-X with a powerful platform to reach millions of underserved patients globally.”
ZAP-X received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 and completed the first SRS procedure at Barrow Brain and Spine, a partner of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona in 2019. The platform gained CE mark in Europe in 2021 and approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) in 2023.
In July 2024, ZAP-X completed its first patient brain tumour treatments at Dongguk University Ilsan Hospital in South Korea.
GlobalData analysis forecasts that the global market for robotic surgical systems will reach a valuation of $10bn by the end of 2024 and $15.8bn by 2030. According to GlobalData’s Medical Device Pipeline database, in 2023 there were 13 radiosurgery systems devices in various stages of development globally.
