Blue Belt Technologies Forms Scientific Advisory Board

Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Blue Belt Technologies Inc. has formed a Scientific Advisory Board for the development and commercialization of the Navio PFS (precision freehand sculpting) orthopedic surgical system. The Navio PFS is a navigation platform made up of a virtual bone-cutting guide with detailed visualization and a hand-held robotic instrument, which enables the precision of robotics through the hand of a surgeon. Physicians can use the system with any implant they choose.

The new board is co-chaired by Jess H. Lonner, M.D., and Andrew D. Pearle, M.D. Lonner is an attending orthopedic surgeon at the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia, Pa., and an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in the same city. He has written nearly 200 peer reviewed scientific publications and chapters, and has published several textbooks on knee replacement surgery. Pearle is an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, N.Y. He is a team physician for the New York Mets and currently serves as editor-in-chief of the industry journal Techniques in Knee Surgery. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers.

Other scientific advisory board members include:

• Professor Johan Bellemans, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of orthopedic surgery at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, and chairman of the orthopedic department at the Catholic University Hospitals in Leuven and Pellenberg, Belgium;
• Professor David Murray, M.D., a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, United Kingdom, and a consultant orthopedic surgeon at the Nuffield Orthopedic Centre in Oxford. Murray specifically is working with Blue Belt to develop applications for the hip using the Navio PFS; and
• S. David Stulberg, M.D., director and founder of the joint reconstruction and implantation service at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill., and at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Rush North Shore Medical Center.

“Blue Belt Technologies is poised to further advance the field of robotically assisted orthopedic surgery,” said Lonner. “We have a uniquely qualified Scientific Advisory Board with surgeon members that offer a breadth of valuable surgical experience and a proven history of commitment to implant development and smart tool innovation.”