The digital medical technology company Brainlab today announced in a press release that they’ve acquired medical video game creators Level Ex for an undisclosed amount.
Brainlab explained in the press release that the acquisition will help them with their broader strategy to drive greater value creation across the healthcare data economy.
Stefan Vilsmeier, President and CEO of Brainlab explained why they acquired Level Ex and what the medical video game creators can offer by saying: “We began working with Level Ex in 2019 for several reasons. They are the best at disseminating best practices through video games, and they are unrivaled in their level of ergonomic user interaction, gaming-industry-quality 3D graphics, precise physics models, and game mechanics psychology.”
Brainlab is a digital medical company that creates software-driven medical solutions that digitised, automate, and optimise clinical workflows for various surgical procedures including neurosurgery, spine, trauma, craniomaxillofacial (CMF), general, and vascular alongside providing services including radiotherapy and radiosurgery.
Brainlab’s core products include surgical navigation, radiotherapy, digital operating room integration, and information and knowledge exchange with the possibility of their suite of products expanding due to their newfound capabilities in LevelEx.
The Munich-based digital medical company claims to serve a mixture of physicians, medical professionals, and patients in over 5,500 hospitals in 116 countries with a team of over more than 1,400 people.
Level Ex is in a unique position to help Brainlab as they’re a medical gaming company that creates mobile, AR, and VR games for healthcare professionals which allows them to offer a new way of presenting their software-driven medical solutions to new and existing audiences.
The medical video game creators use state-of-the-art video game technology and cognitive neuroscience to capture the challenges of practicing medicine by bringing a gaming approach to the way physicians and surgeons advance their clinical skills, earn CME, and keep up-to-speed on rare cases, new medical devices, and drug therapies.
Their games include Cardio Ex, Pulm Ex, Gastro Ex, and Airway Ex, all of which are designed in a way to help healthcare professionals advance their skills and see where they need to improve.
An example of the training the medical video game creators can do is with their current project with NASA where they are helping them build a framework for future astronaut medical training.
The company claims that its games are played by over 600,000 healthcare professionals across 20 pharmaceutical and medical device companies, national medical societies, and government organisations worldwide.
Level Ex also has partnerships with multiple pharmaceutical companies which is a list they plan to grow now they have the full support of Brainlab.
The demand for more innovative and lower-cost ways to train and carry out medical procedures has seen a significant rise in attention due to COVID-19.
Medical imaging startup Nanox recently raised $20m to bring their lower cost healthcare imaging system to market quicker and there are constantly new ways of how AI and emerging technologies are being used to cut costs and provide more effective healthcare.
“Our mission is to advance the practice of medicine through play: unleashing video game technology and design to improve skill and accelerate the adoption curve of new techniques and technologies in healthcare,” said Sam Glassenberg, founder and CEO of Level Ex. “I can’t imagine a better place to fulfill that mission than Brainlab—a company that has fiercely advanced the cutting edge of medicine for decades and continues to build platforms that service broad ecosystems in healthcare.”
Brainlab explained in the press release that they’ve recognised “there is an urgency to deliver agile and scalable solutions in the immersive, virtual, and mobile space to help drive meaningful development and the adoption of digital medical technology across the value chain”.
By combining the companies capabilities together it offers them a chance to create an end-to-end solution where they can create new software-driven medical solutions and then provide virtual and augmented reality training on the new solution.
The digital medical company Brainlab is already integrating Level Ex technology across vertical and horizontal products with the Brainlab 3D Viewer software and a virtual sales tool for the company’s ExacTrac X-Ray patient position and monitoring system.
The Brainlab open framework operating system will allow third parties to develop medical applications to further advance the field of spatial computing and mixed reality.
Some of the upcoming releases from Level Ex are new games in the areas of dermatology, orthopedics, and oncology over the next year, alongside its popular games in general and interventional cardiology and airway management.
Level Ex became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brainlab at the end of May and continues to independently operate from its Chicago office retaining its name, management team, and medical and surgical gaming product lines.
