Medical innovation takes a major step forward in Alsace

On July 16, 2026, the technical platform at the IHU Strasbourg hosted a landmark medical procedure: the implantation of a cochlear implant (for profound bilateral hearing loss) that simultaneously incorporated 3D exoscopy and otologic robotics.

A Leading Clinical and Industrial Collaboration

This complex procedure was successfully performed by the surgical team in the ENT department at the Strasbourg University Hospitals, under the direction of Prof. Christian Debry (director of the IHU and head of the ENT department), and led by Prof. Anne Charpiot and Dr. Carine Eyermann. The procedure on this first adult patient relied on a combination of two complementary, state-of-the-art technologies:

• The VITOM® 3D Exoscope – Karl Storz: This high-definition visualization system projects a 3D image onto a dedicated surgical monitor. It provides optimal perception of depth and anatomical landmarks in the middle ear, improving ergonomic workflow compared to a traditional microscope.
• The RobOtol® robot – Collin Medical: The first robotic system designed specifically for ear microsurgery, it assists the surgeon in the micrometric insertion of the implant electrode into the cochlea, thereby ensuring the safety of the procedure and maximizing the preservation of the delicate structures of the inner ear.

Spreading Technology and Preparing for the Future

While this dual technological approach has already been tested in other hospitals in France, its implementation at the IHU Strasbourg and the HUS is part of a larger initiative. For the IHU Strasbourg and its partners, the challenge does not end with this initial success. Drawing on the experience gained in the field, the teams are actively participating in the development and optimization of future robots designed for ENT and other precision medical specialties.

Prospects for Research and Training

Starting in September 2026, this clinical program will get into full swing with one to two scheduled outpatient procedures per month. The upcoming integration of the ENT and neurosurgery departments will round out the institute’s areas of expertise.

Beyond the immediate benefits for patients, this activity in the technical platform will serve as the foundation for new training programs for residents, specialists, and operating room nurses (IBODE). It will also fuel ambitious translational research projects in the fields of surgery and AI-enhanced imaging, fitting naturally into the roadmap for the IHU Strasbourg’s major new collaborative projects in close partnership with the HUS.

Learn more:

• The ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) and Head and Neck Surgery Department at HUS: Click here
• VITOM® 3D Exoscope (Karl Storz): Click here
• RobOtol® robot (Collin Medical): Click here

The Medicine of Tomorrow: The MediTwin Consortium Reviews Progress on Virtual Twins at Its Scientific Symposium

On June 3, PariSanté Campus hosted the symposium for the MediTwin project led by Dassault Systèmes to create virtual twins for the medicine of tomorrow. This event provided an opportunity for the consortium’s partners to present concrete progress in the translational and technological research being conducted.

The MediTwin Project

Launched with the ambition of revolutionizing medical practice, MediTwin develops personalized virtual twins for patients. These virtual replicas of organs or medical conditions make it possible to simulate treatments, predict disease progression, and ensure the safety of surgical or therapeutic procedures even before they are performed in a clinical setting.

Developed over five years (from 2024 to 2029), this large-scale initiative receives financial support from France 2030, affirming the national commitment to positioning the country as a leader in digital health.

A Consortium of Excellence

MediTwin’s strength lies in its multidisciplinary approach, bringing together a global industry leader—Dassault Systèmes—innovative startups—inHEART, Qairn, UsefulProgress, PredictMedical, and Codoc—a leading research institute—Inria— seven university hospitals: Foresight, ICAN, Imagine, Institut du Cerveau, Liryc, PRISM, and Strasbourg, and the Nantes University Hospital.

A rich and collaborative program

The symposium began with a morning of plenary lectures focused on the project’s clinical applications in prevention and care within cardiology, oncology, and neurology.

The afternoon was devoted to technical workshops and collaborative working groups. Researchers and clinicians were able to discuss image segmentation, multi-fidelity simulation, data assimilation, and the integration of artificial intelligence and numerical simulation. A poster session and presentations of Inria’s cutting-edge SOFA and Fed-BioMed software platforms rounded out this day of scientific exchange.

By bringing together government resources, the agility of startups, the rigor of academic research, and the expertise of clinicians, MediTwin is steadily fulfilling its promise: to deliver more predictive, personalized, and safe medicine for the direct benefit of patients.

Learn more about the MediTwin project:
www.3ds.com/fr/science/meditwin

RHU ENVISAGE: A medical, scientific, and technological alliance to transform the management of valvular heart disease.

Valvular heart disease refers to conditions affecting the heart’s valves that can lead to heart failure. Diagnosis relies primarily on echocardiography, which allows for the assessment of valve damage and the feasibility of interventions. The ENVISAGE (Enhanced Valves Interventions and Safe AI Generated End results) University-Hospital Research (RHU) program is developing a decision-making platform guided by echocardiography enhanced by artificial intelligence for optimized management of valvular heart disease. Led by the Bordeaux University Hospital, the ENVISAGE consortium brings together leading university hospital and industry partners around a common goal: to develop an AI solution that is easy to use in clinical practice to guide patient selection, planning, and the prediction of outcomes for transcatheter interventions.

Photo credit: RHU ENVISAGE

The IHU Strasbourg and the MOSaiC platform

The IHU Strasbourg contributes to the ENVISAGE program with its expertise and its online collaborative platform, MOSaiC, designed for the annotation and evaluation of medical videos. MOSaiC was developed by Prof. Nicolas Padoy and his CAMMA (Computational Analysis and Modeling of Medical Activities) team to accelerate data science projects in surgery and interventional medicine. The IHU Strasbourg’s involvement in ENVISAGE demonstrates its commitment to providing powerful tools to accelerate the transfer of translational research findings to patients.

Want to learn more?

Presentation video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rJZB5DkOiM
Project website: www.envisage-rhu.com

Do you have a question, an idea, or need more information?
www.envisage-rhu.com/contact

Project partners

Navigation has always been a major challenge in image-guided procedures, particularly for applications such as ablation, biopsy, the placement of fiducial markers, and targeted drug delivery. To address this challenge, the ICube laboratory, a long-standing partner of the IHU Strasbourg, is leading the Ajustable-stiffness steerable needle (ARC) project.

Technology for Percutaneous Precision

Designed to transform percutaneous interventional procedures, this innovative needle resolves a complex biomechanical paradox. It combines extreme flexibility—essential for precise guidance through delicate tissues and winding pathways—with on-demand stiffness. This variable stiffness allows the device to safely traverse tissues without deviating from its target.

A true breakthrough for minimally invasive procedures and robotic surgery, this technology pushes the boundaries of anatomical targeting while minimizing tissue trauma for the patient.

Video credits:Lennart Rubbert

The ARC project is designed to serve as a true technology transfer accelerator. It is aimed at healthcare industry players seeking new solutions.

The IHU: A Hub for Innovation and Experimentation

Within the ARC project team, Dr. Juan Verde, a surgeon and researcher at the IHU, plays a key role in bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and addressing clinical needs. By contributing to his clinical and experimental expertise, he ensures that technical development is grounded in the realities of surgical practice to meet the needs of clinicians and guarantee patient safety.

A Cross-Border Consortium of Excellence

This innovative initiative is the result of genuine synergy among leading stakeholders. ARC is being developed by a Franco-Swiss team that brings together expertise in mechanical design, medical robotics, interventional radiology, and translational research.

We would like to congratulate the entire consortium behind this project: the ICube laboratory, Instant-Lab – EPFL, Mimesis Inria, le CNRS, l’Université de Strasbourg, l’INSA Strasbourg, l’Inserm, and SATT Conectus.

👉 Learn more about this technology and explore opportunities for industrial partnerships on the new official ARC project website:
https://www.arc-medtech.com/

👉 For partnership opportunities, technology transfer, or further technical information: 
https://www.arc-medtech.com/in-depth.html#tech-transfer

This is a new breakthrough in the fight against pancreatic cancer. The mAI Companion® medical device, which uses artificial intelligence to assist with pancreatic endoscopic ultrasound, has just obtained CE marking under the strict European Medical Device Regulation (MDR). Marketed by Medi-Globe, it is now available for clinical use in Europe.

The need for early detection

Pancreatic cancer is currently one of the deadliest and most difficult cancers to detect. Early identification of lesions is a real challenge with an impact on prognosis and patient outcome. mAI Companion® was developed to address this major clinical challenge.

A real-time “second set of eyes” for clinicians

Designed to integrate seamlessly into the endoscopist’s work environment, mAI Companion® acts as an intelligent assistant operating in real time. Its goal is to optimize the quality of the examination and the detection of pancreatic lesions through several features:

• Continuous anatomical guidance to maintain systematic coverage of the pancreas.
• Assistance in detecting lesions, providing the practitioner with immediate visual verification.
• Monitoring examination completeness, allowing at-a-glance visualization of the time spent on each area (head, body, and tail of the pancreas)
• Image and video recording to facilitate documentation and report editing.

Dr. Leonardo Sosa Valencia, Clinical Gastroenterologist, Digestive Echo Endoscopist, Medical Staff Manager at IHU, Strasbourg, France copyright: Medi-Globe GmbH / More information via ots and www.presseportal.de/en/nr/142441 / The use of this image for editorial purposes is permitted and free of charge provided that all conditions of use are complied with. Publication must include image credits.

mAI Companion® is an assistance tool, and the physician’s clinical judgment remains essential.

Technology transfer in record time

The mAI Companion® adventure perfectly illustrates the mission of the IHU Strasbourg, which is to accelerate the transfer of innovations to patients.

The research project began in 2021, with crucial financial support from the ARC Foundation for Cancer Research, under the leadership of Dr. Leonardo Sosa-Valencia, an expert in ultrasound endoscopy, and Prof. Nicolas Padoy, who heads the “CAMMA – Computational Analysis and Modeling of Medical Activities” team at the IHU. In 2022, the IHU established an R&D collaboration with the German company Medi-Globe to develop a prototype, which was transferred in 2023 to iGlobe Scientific, the joint venture created by the IHU Strasbourg and the German group Medi-Globe to accelerate product development.

Today, less than five years after the initial research work, the solution devised by the clinical and scientific teams has become a fully validated product, having undergone a complex regulatory process, CE MDR marking, and is now available on the healthcare market.

This achievement illustrates the IHU’s ability to respond concretely to medical needs by combining medical and scientific excellence with cutting-edge industrial expertise.

Training in excellence in echoendoscopy at the IHU Strasbourg

Technological innovation only comes into its own when it is mastered by practitioners. That is why the IHU Strasbourg is actively involved in the continuing education of international specialists. Through the ITEC (International Therapeutic Endoscopic Ultrasound Course), led by Dr. Leonardo Sosa Valencia, we offer intensive practical training in the most advanced therapeutic echoendoscopy techniques, incorporating the use of the latest innovations such as artificial intelligence.

Read the full press release, published on February 24, 2026:
https://www.presseportal.de/en/pm/142441/6222620

Discover the mAI Companion® project: Click here

Learn more about the ITEC course: Click here

On Thursday, February 12, the Strasbourg University Hospital Institute (IHU) opened its doors to a delegation of members from the BioValley France competitiveness cluster. This event, organized as a “Visit & Networking” session, reaffirmed the close ties between our institute and the major players in economic and industrial development in the healthcare sector in the Grand Est region.

An immersion in the heart of surgical innovation

Throughout the morning, participants were able to discover the infrastructure that makes the IHU a center of excellence in image-guided surgery. The tour highlighted the Institute’s technological platforms, which serve as interfaces between academic research and clinical application. This immersion offered manufacturers, startups, and academics in attendance a concrete vision of the IHU’s capabilities in supporting innovation, from proof of concept to technology transfer.

The IHU Strasbourg, accelerator of the regional health sector

BioValley France is the gateway to the Greater East health ecosystem, closely bringing together innovation stakeholders and structuring their collaborations.

In this context, the IHU Strasbourg has established itself as a key strategic partner, enabling the development, testing, and validation of innovations, and supporting players in the ecosystem to achieve higher levels of maturity and value creation.

Networking as a lever for future collaborations

Beyond the institutional visit, the morning was devoted to informal exchanges. These discussions provided an opportunity to address current health issues: the integration of artificial intelligence, the development of minimally invasive medical devices, and the challenges of health data. By welcoming these key players, the IHU Strasbourg reaffirms its position as a hub open to its ecosystem, confirming that medical excellence today is built on the convergence of clinical, scientific, and entrepreneurial expertise.

This visit is part of an open communication strategy: showing what we do, who we do it with, and how it benefits patients. By opening our doors, we are not only sharing our expertise, we are collectively building the healthcare sovereignty of tomorrow.

Learn more about Biovalley France: www.biovalley-france.com