This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine
and Orthopedics podcast. And today, I'm joined by
doctor Osama Choudhury to talk about some of
the latest developments in the spine medtech space.
Doctor Choudhury, thank you so much for being
here. Thank you, Charlie.
And so before we begin, could you introduce
yourself and tell us a bit more about
your clinical background and also what you're doing
with, Medevis?
Yep.
So,
my background is in neurosurgery. I,
trained and am on faculty at, NYU Langone.
And, I'm a cofounder here at Medeviz
alongside,
doctor Morley and,
and so the, wonderful engineers that we have
such as doctor Kian.
And our entire focus at Metabiz is
introducing,
the next generation of navigation technology centered around,
artificial intelligence and augmented reality,
allowing for just
enhanced
perception, enhanced visualization,
during surgical procedures.
Great. And,
to get a start, you know, this is
great timing,
with this podcast.
This week, just yesterday, BB Spine, they announced
that they're gonna acquire Augmedic's AR Spine System.
And I'm wondering
what you think this move means for a
broader spine tech landscape and just just any
kind of predictions you have when it comes
to
AR and spine surgery?
Yeah. Obviously, big news. You know, Augmedix is
certainly a pioneer in this space, and,
they've done wonderful work in introducing seeing the
market to augmented reality
for navigation.
VB Spine,
obviously,
you know, they acquired these,
Stryker spine implant portfolio, and they're really looking
to differentiate themselves and,
introduce new technology to the market. So,
excited for for v b spine and Augmedix
to to have joined in that partnership.
You know, always curious to understand what that
means in terms of,
Augmedix kind of remaining an
open platform, which it was previously.
The trend for a lot of,
the enabling technologies
within
spine have been towards,
joining forces with an implant company so that
they can, you know,
work,
together and,
and have a increased sort of,
ability to provide a differentiated technology to the
market as compared to competitors.
But, you know, obviously,
not every surgeon uses the BB Spine portfolio.
So I'm wondering what will happen,
with the surgeons,
that don't but used Augmedix.
But certainly,
great news for the industry.
And, we're obviously big fans of augmented reality
technology ourselves, and,
and it's exciting to have a company like
Augmedix,
you know, have at home now at VB
Spine and and, continue,
their work in, in creating new technology as
well.
Absolutely. And I'd love if you could just
kind of dive in more into just any
other spy innovations that you've been using clinically
that excite you the most.
I think a lot
of the spine innovations
that are exciting that are are now coming
down the pipeline, certainly a lot of,
innovation around AI based,
surgical planning,
personalized raw templating.
There's a newer innovations on, kind of inner
body devices as well. We've obviously seen what
what's happened with kind of,
many years now of introduction of expandable,
inner body technology. And and, and obviously, on
the implant side, innovations and kind of prone
lateral approaches.
So there's been wonderful innovation both on the
hardware side and the implant side as well
as the digital ecosystem. And,
and for myself personally, I think, just the
excitement around
AI and and what it will do to
kind of how we make decisions for,
what approaches to take for our patients,
as well as
executing in the operating room is, is very
exciting.
Yeah. And I'd love to hear some examples
of how you're using AI both, you know,
working at Medevis and then also when you're
working with patients.
I mean, I think for any technology company,
AI is is becoming kind of a central
pillar
of how,
one,
innovates and, you know, our engineers are,
very much adapting to kind of,
the ability to use AI to,
increase throughput in terms of,
bringing features to market,
investigating new ideas.
You know, as we know, spine kind of
enabling technology has always,
really been focused on,
implant placement,
like screw placement primarily.
And, you know, at Medeviz, we really believe
that navigation,
can go beyond that. It can really,
help
with execution.
And the other parts of the operation
such as decompression or,
for example, in, in deformity cases, osteotomies
for, for alignment correction.
And so, you know, AI certainly helps
one,
iterate faster. And so we're we're very excited,
and the engineering team,
is also very exciting to to harness these
tools. For myself personally,
the way AI is being used, I I
think
there's been a huge shift in terms of,
using AI for documentation.
You know, at NYU,
we've adopted,
a bridge as a platform. There's other great
companies out there as well, like Ambiance and
Come Your, which allow for,
for one to document,
a patient visit readily and,
and kind of, decrease the the burden on
the clinician,
to have to do notes at a later
time point. I think that's how AI is
now starting to be used in clinical practice.
There's other platforms like Open Evidence
and Doximity that are
being used, to kind of, ask clinical questions
and and be able to search peer reviewed
literature more easily.
And so that's another exciting way that AI
is being used as well.
So, you know, it's only the beginning of
what's will what's going to be possible,
but, a very exciting time for sure.
Definitely couldn't afford it better myself,
just, you know, the beginning of everything.
And, you know, when you think about just
headwinds in your work,
what are you anticipating
the most in terms of headwinds, and how
are we gonna be getting ahead of it?
Yeah. I mean, our focus at MetaBiz, again,
is to provide,
you know,
what we call surgical intelligence in the form
of,
of navigation
using AI and AR. And for us, it's
a very visual technology, and,
our work primarily for the
last few years was centered around working with
the FDA to get the the,
the approvals needed in order to bring this
technology to market. And so,
you know, in the last six months, we,
we announced clearance for,
for spine surgery specifically. And then,
in December 2025, we announced clearance for cranial
surgery, which is important because, you know, half
of spine procedures
or in the in The United States are
performed by neurosurgeons who also
do cranial procedures or may do cranial procedures
as well. So it's great to be able
to have both clearances.
And for us, headwinds,
you know, the the main headwind
that or the main challenge that,
we have to work through is really distribution.
You know, I think the the team's done
an incredible job of creating
a very compelling product,
you know, in terms of best in class
AR technology. But it really is important for
us to get the product in the hands
of,
the surgeons that could potentially use it. And
how one does that as a
as a start up company,
you know, requires kinda ingenuity and and creativity.
And, and that's what we're excited about tackling
head on this year is how can we
get as many
clinicians and surgeons as possible to see the
technology for themselves and see what's possible,
when they're able to leverage this in their
operating room.
Yeah. And then also in terms of headwinds,
you know, when you're thinking about your clinical
work at NYU,
what's the biggest challenge you're facing?
Well, I think clinical work in general for,
for surgeons and clinicians is,
in kind of a,
an interesting period. You know, we're, you know,
nationally, we're always dealing with changes in policy,
whether it's reimbursement cuts.
There's certainly
more of an influence of administration
in terms of,
of kind of,
what procedures,
we do or what technologies we can work
with. And, I think for the individual surgeon,
these are all challenges that
one has to navigate
simultaneously.
It's one of the most exciting times to
be practicing just given the amount of technology
available and and the the potential for what
will be possible,
for us to do for our patients. And
so,
it's, it's certainly,
going to be an interesting time period,
for surgeons over the next,
five to ten years.
Got it. And then, you know, when you
think about your clinical practice, how are you
thinking about
growth in the next twelve to twenty four
months?
Yeah. I mean, my primary focus is,
with Medeviz and and leading Medeviz, you know,
clinically, the work that I do,
at NYU is a mixture of both cranial
and spine surgery.
And, you know, for me personally,
certainly,
the ability to use kind of,
these technologies
that,
we've been focused on developing,
is something that really excites me. You know,
the ability to use,
technologies like augmented reality to do cranial surgery
and to do spinal fusion surgery,
and then to see the effects of that.
You know,
for us as a team, it's very important
to study outcomes.
So how do these technologies,
improve,
you know, reduction in complications, whether it's implant
displacement,
and also how do they improve efficiency in
terms of completing procedures,
faster, reducing time under anesthesia patients, and ultimately
getting them back to their families,
more quickly.
Got it. And then my last question for
you, doctor Chowdhury, besides everything that we've been
talking about, what are three big health care
trends that you're following the closest?
Three big health care trends. So, I mean,
certainly, I spoke about this a little bit
already, but, you know, the use of,
AI practically in medicine, I think, is something
that we're all following very closely, and it's
starting really on the documentation side and and,
maybe researching clinical evidence. But, you know, very
interesting to see how that will move towards
decision making, you know, whether it's clinical decision
making outside of the operating room or even
inside the operating room. That's a trend that
I think,
we're all following very closely.
I think for
for spine surgery in general, a a big
trend is also kind of the transition of
of,
case volume from,
you know, hospital based operating rooms to ambulatory
surgical centers.
And we're seeing a lot of activity there.
Obviously, Optum recently,
you know, had the acquisition of SCA.
I I believe Ascension has or will be
announcing,
the acquisition of AmSurge.
You know, Tenet Healthcare,
owns USPI. And so there's a bit of
a a very interesting consolidation
process happening on the ASC side where, a
lot of these health systems are actually looking,
to bring that,
that case volume
to these outpatient settings. And so that's something
we're tracking very closely as well.
For my myself as a surgeon, probably the
third trend,
which,
is becoming more relevant but may not be
as relevant right now is kind of the
innovation happening in
in robotics, but,
more in kind of humanoid based robotics. I
think there's just,
a tremendous
amount
of,
of research and development happening in how how
does one create,
robotic technology that kind of can simulate,
the human hand in terms of degrees of
freedom or dexterity
and what that means for kind of the
future of surgery,
in the coming years, I think, is is
very fascinating and something,
we're following very closely.
Right. Well,
doctor Chowdhury, thank you so much for joining
us on today's podcast. It's been a great
conversation,
and I look forward to connecting again in
the future. Thank you, Carly.