How a Veteran Surgeon Is Building the Next Generation of Smart Surgical Tools — and a Company to Scale Them
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Show Notes:
In this episode of Mission Matters, host Adam Torres interviews Michael Norton, President & Founder of Axcess Instruments, about his patented device that’s changing the way surgeons approach laparoscopic procedures. Michael shares the story behind the innovation, the investment opportunity, and how it all began with a challenge to do better. Recorded live at the Newport Beach Investor Conference.
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About Michael Norton
Michael Norton, MD is President of Axcess Instruments, Inc. He is board certified in General Surgery. Axcess Instruments, Inc. has developed a fully digital 4K enhanced imaging device for Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) that fits in the palm of your hand. The AxcessPort TM simplifies MIS by combining 6 key features in a single small device. We address key segments representing the laparoscopic market to provide the foundation for effective introduction, implementation, and sustained development.
About Axcess Instruments
Designed to improve the speed and accuracy of surgery, Axcess Instruments has introduced the AxcessPort with a unified strategy. Abdominal cavity access is combined with steerable 4K imaging resulting in a device that provides natural digital steering, easy lens maintenance, LED lighting, insufflation, and a +1 instrument channel with 4 degrees of freedom.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on be Our Guest to Apply. Alright, so today I’m in Newport, California and I’m at the Newport Beach Investor Conference, and let me tell you one of my favorite events every single year.
I do not miss. If you haven’t been, you gotta come next year. Um, and my guest was just on stage a little bit ago and we’re gonna get into, into his company what he’s up to. Is he raising? Is he not raising? Let’s get into it. Michael, welcome. Hey, thank you Adam. Alright, so I understand you were speaking a little bit ago, like, like give, give us some background.
I did. We had a, uh, application, uh, that we made to the Newport investor. Mm-hmm. And we’re accepted to, to present. Mm-hmm. So it’s great honor to be here, to present. And I presented our company access instruments in a way that. The audience could understand it. Hmm. So, so your background and maybe get into access instruments a little bit more.
I am a general surgeon, board certified. I do general surgery and laparoscopic surgery. Mm-hmm. I have 32 years of experience. I work in Tyler, Texas. Yeah. That’s some place that I lived and I’ve lived there for a long time. Where’s Tyler at? You gotta show me, gimme some, some geography here. Lesson here, real, real close.
Tyler is just outside of Dallas, Texas. Oh, okay. We’re an hour and a half away and if you know where Shreveport is, it’s an hour and a half the other direction. So we have a wonderful place to live and, and serve people. Yeah. So access instruments, um, you’re a founder of the company or? I’m a founder of the company and president.
Yeah. How’d you come up with the idea? Where’d that stem? We started in single site surgery, which, uh, has kind of, uh, decreased in popularity, but we learned some things there and we built a new device that takes the advantages of single site surgery and inputs, realigns the equipment. In a more efficient and effective way.
Mm. So, um, let, getting back to your presentation, what, give us a little bit more about the ask. So what, what were, what was the opportunity for investors? We were looking for $2.2 million in ex in exchange for 20% equity. Mm. And what would you be doing with that? That money is gonna go to begin the. Uh, process of an FDA prototype.
We already have a working prototype. Mm-hmm. And then we’ll be working on testing of that, which takes some time, followed by a five 10 KFDA application. Uh, FDA application and then it will also go on to lead up, uh, a parallel business model to build beside so that when we get through the FDA that we’re ready to go operational and manufacture.
Yeah. And what, so when you originally, I, I like to always, this is one of my favorite things about doing this show is, is. I love when somebody is very, um, has a, a lot of education, a surgeon or a maybe other professions where you were in school for a long time. I feel like not everybody goes the entrepreneurial route or, or starts other companies once they’re in those modes.
So when I, when you, when somebody like yourself uses your skillset to. Take the entrepreneur route as well. Um, it’s interesting to me. I’m just curious, were you always entrepreneurial or like how, how’d that come about? Like to to cross over and to be able to do that piece of it too? Because I know, you know, not all of your colleagues do this.
Like they won’t I understand. And, uh, I am not for better or worse sometimes. Right. I’m not particularly entrepreneurial. Okay. Uh, but I do do surgery and I started my practice. Yeah. And, uh, that has a, a lot of things, uh, that you need to put it together. Yeah, so it’s almost being entrepreneurial, you know, a way to serve people and make a living is what we’re trying to do.
But this really resulted from a, uh, pretty much silent challenge match Ooh. And a gastrointestinal magazine. And, uh, they were trying to introduce something called Notes surgery, and it’s natural orifice. Uh, surgery that is transluminal and they actually cut a, a opening in, in your stomach after putting down a laparoscope and doing things through natural orifices.
Wow. And I said they’re trying to do that for less. Less pain. Better. Yes. Yes. Get well faster. Healing. Everything. Healing. And I said, I looked at our stuff that we were doing and we hadn’t done anything to. To respond to it. Wow. We just kept on doing it the way we were doing it, and so, yeah. Oh, so it was one of those, like, we’ve always done it this way.
Moments. Yeah. Maybe I don’t, well, no, we, we had this going on and I said, well, we need to make that challenge. Mm-hmm. Match that challenge. So we started working and how can we put everything in through one incision? Yeah. And so we developed, uh, a port for that, and the first port was access port one. Where, uh, which we use in an animal model.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, those surgeries were popular but they were actually five times harder to do for the surgeon. Mm. So it never hit really mainstream. Yeah. But it had some real advocates in it. But while we did that, we really learned a lot about a geometry, about what you can do, uh, with a port. Mm-hmm. And we put a boot tip on the port ’cause it actually anchors it better in the abdominal wall.
And after the, uh, single site surgery. We put equipment in there. So we call it a garage of tools. And there’s a boot tip that extends radially. Yeah. From a conical port. And it holds a camera. It holds LED lighting. It has, dang, it has insufflation. It has, uh. A proprietary irrigation device that You got a whole camera crew in there, Rick.
I, I got a whole camera crew. You, it really is. That’s also, I can visualize it. It’s, you got everybody in there and, uh, the proprietary jet wash is like having somebody wash your window inside the abdomen. Wow. Where with, uh, standard laparoscopic surgery. We basically have to, you take it out to clean it and then it might fog up.
We talked about some of the things that happened with the laparoscope. Yeah. Laparoscopic surgery’s fantastic. This is just a better way to do it, in my opinion. Mm. So you can have somebody washing your window, you can have somebody driving your camera, uh, that, that is doing things in a natural way. Oh. And that improves our staff responses.
Mm-hmm. And it just makes it more enjoyable experience. I can tell you any laparoscopic surgery surgeon would say. The number one thing is I’d like to get rid of fogging. Oh wow. So that’s a thing. Fogging is a big deal, but we use most, for the most part, reusable scopes. Mm-hmm. And they just are, they have a life expectancy.
Sure. And we need to use ’em for their full life expectancy. We do a single peel, single use peel pack, and we have it worked out in an economic way. Yeah. Where you get a new lens, a new camera. And our, our lens is actually. Uh, hydrophobic to where it doesn’t collect water on it. And we also know that it has low coefficient level and we can rinse it.
Mm. And so everything stays in there. We accomplish the same pur, uh, purpose without taking the camera out, which takes about three minutes to, uh, take out clean, put back. And then you have to regain your intellectual and the space about what you’re looking at. Because when, when you’re with. The access port.
Mm-hmm. You’re not changing your picture. It’s in the same place, can watch it happening so you don’t have to take it out and reacquire. So it’s not moving. Yeah, it’s not moving. If you look at, uh, the actions of the brain, it takes more time than people think to reacquire an image of what Absolutely. What you’re looking at.
Yeah. And you can see it right here. You can start looking at something and, yeah. The, I’m gonna give the simple example. You’re looking at something, your cell phone rings, you look over, then you go back and you’re like, what am I looking at for that? That’s that time for, that’s my simple example. Is that wrong?
That’s a no, that’s a great example. It’s, it’s the human body. Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s what we do. So, uh, we give you a 4K picture, which is, is absolutely beautiful. Uh, I showed that in the program here. Mm-hmm. But we’re collecting data to form a foundation for artificial intelligence. Mm-hmm. So we can get into advancing.
Uh, how you look at things in the abdomen mm-hmm. Where you can have actually have a camera following you. Yeah. The interesting thing also with our device is it doesn’t move. We don’t have any moving parts. Mm. We, we move electronically. Yeah. And that’s just a great leap. That’s cool. From where we are now, it’s all physical movement.
This is all electronic movement. Yeah. And then you can take that data and put it into a data stream and a data data building as you’re working toward more AI projects. Oh man, that’s cool. And as you’re describing this thing, um, I’m. I can’t help it. What is that? That inside out might be Pixar or something.
I’m picturing the, the washer, the, this, they’re cleaning the skull. I couldn’t, I couldn’t help myself. Michael and I had an inside out moment. Well, it’s, it’s all, it’s all, it’s basically all gets done for you. Yeah, yeah. Without taking it out. And that just keeps the, the, uh, sequences of operation and a good workflow pattern.
The single use is quicker to, uh. Re, uh, turn the room. That’s why we call it, we call it room turnover, but it’s a peel pack. Mm-hmm. And to take it off, you just take it out in single use and discard it. Interesting. And I know that you’re, you have a workable prototype and now you’re looking at the next things that it can actually be used.
Um, as you’ve been just kind of, let’s say, sharing the, or socializing the idea, the concept among your peers, among the community, what’s been the response? Well, everybody likes something that’s easier to do. That’s what I’m thinking. But I, it’s just like, if you could remove those things for me, I’d say thank you very much.
Yes. Yes. And so that’s really what we want to do. We wanna serve patients with a good result. Mm-hmm. We wanna move, uh, the facility speed. Yeah. I’d like to see it increase and it can with. Decreasing the turnover times, decreasing the surgery time, and decreasing the time to set up for the next case.
Amazing. Alright, Michael, last thing I want you to do is, uh, I want you to look into the camera and if somebody’s watching this, a lot of business owners, executives at home investors as well. If somebody wants to learn more about the investment opportunity or connect with you and your team, how do they do that?
Uh, we’re on the net. I have a uh, LinkedIn page and also [email protected]. Fantastic. And we’re already watching, just so you know. We’ll definitely put the links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Michael, thanks again for coming out. Appreciate you Adam. Thank you. I appreciate, enjoyed visiting with you.
