Tampa Bay-based virtual reality company Immertec will work with one of the nation's largest medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Immertec CEO Erik Maltais and Johnson & Johnson Global Professional Education Manager Gregory Lightbourn announced the pilot program during the Synapse Summit on Jan. 23.
Immertec uses the real-time virtual reality platform Medoptic, which allows doctors to be trained without ever having to fly out of state.
"No matter how big your company is, if you don’t innovate, you will die"
The technology uses a virtual reality headset to help transform where a person is into an actual operating room where an endoscopy procedure is being performed. The users could even speak with one another.
Maltais previously told the Tampa Bay Business Journal it was in the process of negotiating a multimillion-dollar contract with one of the world’s top medical device manufacturers. He said previously they will have a two-year exclusivity agreement with them.
"We plan to train about 3,000 doctors with one of their companies and plan on scaling to their others," Maltais had said.
During the summit, Lightbourn pointed out how Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) partners with major companies such as Google for robotics and Apple on a research study to detect early irregular heart conditions, but added how the company likes to partner with smaller companies as well such as Immertec.
"No matter how big your company is, if you don’t innovate, you will die," Lightbourn said.
