- Enterprise capital purchase.
- Not disclosed
- Not disclosed
- —
- —
- CH
Surgical AI
VirtaMed
by VirtaMed AG · CH
Surgical training simulators with real instruments for arthroscopy, laparoscopy, gynecology, urology and robotic surgery.
On this page
24/100Niche fit
- Regulatory & Compliance0/28
No FDA clearance listed
- Clinical Integration0/26
No EHR integrations listed
- Evidence Strength22.5/28.8
3 peer-reviewed papers
- Vendor & Market3/18
Seed-stage or unfunded
- Sentiment & Transparency2.5/14
Pricing on request, no public amounts
▸ Show all 11 dimensions▾ Hide dimension detail
- FDA clearance0/18
No FDA clearance listed
- HIPAA / SOC2 / BAA0/10
No public HIPAA/SOC2/BAA attestation
- EHR integrations (count)0/14
No EHR integrations listed
- Top-3 EHR coverage (Epic / Oracle / Athena)0/8
None of the top-3 EHRs covered
- Bidirectional write-back0/4
No bidirectional write-back documented
- Peer-reviewed papers15/21
3 peer-reviewed papers
- RCT / meta-analysis / systematic review8/8
1 RCT/Meta-Analysis/Systematic Review
- Funding & adoption signal3/12
Seed-stage or unfunded
- Years in market0/6
Founded year not recorded
- Clinician sentiment (Reddit)0/9
No clinician sentiment data available
- Pricing transparency3/5
Pricing on request, no public amounts
Surgical training simulators with real instruments for arthroscopy, laparoscopy, gynecology, urology and robotic surgery.
Free tier available.
Bottom line
VirtaMed is a Swiss maker of hardware surgical simulators. Its lines cover arthroscopy, laparoscopy, gynecology, urology and robotic surgery, and the company says they use original instruments with haptic feedback. It is sold as a capital purchase with no public price. It suits a program that needs hands-on, assessable practice on a specific procedure. The vendor says it uses AI but gives no detail. A clinician looking for software to run on a laptop, or a buyer who wants a price, will find neither.
What is VirtaMed and who sells it?
VirtaMed says it "develops the most advanced surgical simulators using hyper-realistic digital twins, AI, and customized hardware," with original instruments and authentic patient positioning (VirtaMed website, October 2026). The products are ArthroS for knee, shoulder, hip and ankle arthroscopy, LaparoS for laparoscopy, GynoS for obstetric ultrasound, IUD insertion, embryo transfer and hysteroscopy, UroS for TURP, TURB, morcellation and laser BPH, and RoboS for robotic surgery.
VirtaMed AG is based in Schlieren, near Zurich, and is an ETH Zurich spin-off incorporated in 2007, with offices in Maitland, Florida and Shanghai (Venture Kick). The founders include Stefan Tuchschmid, Daniel Bachofen, Matthias Harders, Michael Bajka and Raimundo Sierra.
Funding includes Venture Kick CHF 100k in 2008, a CHF 8.0M round in 2017 and an Innosuisse grant in 2021 (Dealroom). PitchBook shows $13.8M total and describes the company as private-equity-backed, with Armira listed. CAE Healthcare distributes VirtaMed under a distributor agreement.
What does it do well?
The simulators are built to train and assess skills. A vendor sales page says ArthroS has been used in the Swiss Society for Orthopedics and Traumatology board exam since 2013, which is the vendor's claim. The company also says dozens of peer-reviewed validation studies exist.
What does the evidence say?
Three peer-reviewed papers involve VirtaMed hardware.
- A 2024 Arthroscopy randomized trial of 14 residents (PMID 38513878) compared immersive VR from PrecisionOS with the non-immersive ArthroS Hip VR. Performance was similar, and the immersive option was cheaper. VirtaMed was the comparator in that trial.
- A 2024 BMC Medical Education crossover study (PMID 38807093) compared LaparoS with LapSim and LapMentor III. All trainees improved.
- A 2023 study in Orthopaedics and Traumatology: Surgery and Research (PMID 36649789) followed 22 novice students on ArthroS and tested approach-inversion training.
The two papers that report a sample enrolled 14 residents and 22 students.
Where does it fall short?
The AI claim has no detail behind it. Regulatory status is also unclear. The vendor page makes no FDA statement, and a secondary market report says the simulators are training devices that do not need FDA approval, are CE marked, and carry ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485. No certificate is cited for that. HIPAA and EHR integration do not apply to a training simulator.
How is it priced?
VirtaMed publishes no price, and the purchase is a capital one, so the route to a number is a quote request to VirtaMed or to CAE Healthcare as distributor (October 2026). The cost range per simulator is unknown.
How does it compare?
Osso VR, PrecisionOS, Level Ex and Touch Surgery are the software or VR options. Surgical Science (LapSim), Simbionix (LapMentor) and CAE are the hardware competitors. The 2024 residents' trial is the only head-to-head with a VR option in the sources, so a program choosing between them should price both for its own procedures.
Who is it for?
A residency program or medical school with a skills lab and a capital budget, and a need for assessable arthroscopy or laparoscopy practice, is the buyer. VirtaMed sells to institutions, so an individual trainee has no purchase route.
The verdict
Buy a VirtaMed unit if your lab already needs a physical arthroscopy or laparoscopy station and you can fund it from capital. A program that mainly wants cheaper, portable practice should price a VR option first, since the one trial in the sources found similar performance at lower cost. Treat the AI mention as unexplained until the vendor says what it does.
Editorial review last generated October 15, 2026. Synthesized from clinician sentiment, peer-reviewed coverage, and our editorial silo picks. Refined by hand where vendor facts change.
What it costs
Free tier only, no paid plans publicly disclosed.
| Tier | Monthly | Annual | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | — | — | Enterprise capital purchase. |
Source: vendor pricing page. Last checked October 15, 2026.
What the literature says
3 peer-reviewed studies indexed on PubMed evaluate VirtaMed in clinical contexts. The most relevant are shown below, ranked by editorial relevance score combining title match, study design, recency, and journal tier.
- Hip Arthroscopy Simulator Training With Immersive Virtual Reality Has Similar Effectiveness to Nonimmersive Virtual Reality.
- Rahman OF, Kunze KN, Yao K, et al.· Arthroscopy· 2024
- To (1) compare the efficacy of immersive virtual reality (iVR) to nonimmersive virtual reality (non-iVR) training in hip arthroscopy on procedural and knowledge-based skills acquisition and (2) evaluate the relative cost of each platform. Fourteen orthopaedic surgery residents were randomized to simulation training utilizing an iVR Hip Arthroscopy Simulator (n = 7; PrecisionOS) or non-iVR simulator (n = 7; ArthroS Hip VR; VirtaMed). After training, performance was assessed on a cadaver by 4 expert hip arthroscopists through arthroscopic video review of a diagnostic hip arthroscopy.…
- Virtual reality simulation training in laparoscopic surgery - does it really matter, what simulator to use? Results of a cross-sectional study.
- Sparn MB, Teixeira H, Chatziisaak D, et al.· BMC Med Educ· 2024
- Virtual reality simulation training plays a crucial role in modern surgical training, as it facilitates trainees to carry out surgical procedures or parts of it without the need for training "on the patient". However, there are no data comparing different commercially available high-end virtual reality simulators. Trainees of an international gastrointestinal surgery workshop practiced in different sequences on LaparoS® (VirtaMed), LapSim® (Surgical Science) and LapMentor III® (Simbionix) eight comparable exercises, training the same basic laparoscopic skills. Simulator based m…
- Arthroscopic approach in initial training: Study of a novice cohort using inverse direct and indirect approaches and its implication in the development of training programs.
- Guerra Bresson H, Baumann Q, El Koussaify J, et al.· Orthop Traumatol Surg Res· 2023
- Arthroscopic training includes successive stages of observation, reproduction and then repetition. Learning through simulation in 2D virtual reality makes it possible to repeat these different stages to enhance the learner's experience in complete safety and a shorter timeframe. Some procedures require inversion of the optical and instrumental approaches in the axial plane, disrupting the existing psychomotor and technical skills. The objective of this study was to compare the degree of difficulty and the distribution of results for the same exercise carried out alternately in classical holdi…
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