A robot for hair plugs

Hair plugs. It's a topic no one wants to talk about. Getting hair plugs is a sign of vanity. Besides, what if, instead of using spare arm or leg hair, they plant those crinkly, thick hairs from your big toe onto your head?

Restoration Robotics can't help with that problem, but it will help with the actual planting. The company has created a robot that assists doctors in this part of the operation. Now, doctors put in the hair plugs by hand, just like rice farmers. These robots can save time, money, etc.

A less desirable alternative

(Credit: Party Domain)

The company has also just raised $25 million in a second round of financing, according to VentureWire (subscription required). The company will use the money to conduct clinical trials and move to market. Earlier, it raised $11 million. Despite all the money, the company is still somewhat secretive.

"You have Rogaine and Propecia, but those don't give you the same effect, or there's the comb-over," CEO Jim McCollum told VentureWire. Hey, Jim, what about the cinnamon roll? You forgot that hairdo.

Medical devices are getting big and venture money has been streaming in. Israel, which has a large number of doctors and engineers, has been a hot market. Hair removal and cellulite sculpting company Syneron Medical had a successful IPO a few years back.

The U.S. is seeing a surge too. Recently, Satiety raised $30 million for a in-patient stomach stapling device. Normally, doctors have to perform surgery on obese patients to staple stomachs. Cellutions, for cellulite sculpting (not like ice sculptures, more to smooth it out) raised $7 million this summer.

[DrJayDarji]

No Substitute for Hands-On Approach

As a physician and future patient for hair transplant, I have seen the extreme amount of care and precision it takes to make a good hair transplant undetectable. Few surgeons in the world can truly accomplish this, Dr. John Cole and his team in Atlanta comes to mind (you can see pre-op and post-op pics on his website) and I don't think I would just yet trust my head to a robot, which would use mechanical precision I assume to place micro-grafts. Every head is different, angles differ, depth differs, scalp tension differs. An automated approach just doesn't seems logical to me in an industry that demands nothing less than the best personal approach modern science can give.

[Ricknderson]

I totally agree to what Dr. Jay had rightly commented, but here one thing should be kept in mind that human approach is very costly and not everyone can afford it.<br />===============================================================<br />Jacob<br /><br />&lt;a href="http://chtc.ca" rel="dofollow"&gt;Hair Transplant Toronto&lt;/a&gt;

[Ricknderson]

I totally agree to what Dr. Jay had rightly commented, but here one thing should be kept in mind that human approach is very costly and not everyone can afford it.<br />===============================================================<br />Jacob<br /><br />[url="http://chtc.ca"]Hair Transplant Toronto[/url]