Smith+Nephew and Imperial College London launch centre to accelerate innovation in surgical robotics

Marking a new approach to innovation in medical robotics, the new centre will bring advances from a leading surgical robotics research group to patients more quickly

Smith+Nephew (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN), the global medical technology company, and Imperial College London have launched a five-year partnership to deliver breakthrough research and innovation for robotic surgery for musculoskeletal conditions.

The first-in-kind partnership will bring together a globally renowned academic laboratory with engineers from Smith+Nephew to accelerate the translation of academic breakthroughs in fields such as computer vision and sensing into advanced techniques in robotic surgery.

The techniques will be designed to make robotic surgery less invasive and more intuitive and usable by more than just the specialist centres, leading to better outcomes for patients.

The centre’s launch marks both the first time that UK multinational Smith+Nephew has founded a centre of this kind within a university, and Imperial’s first industry centre in the field of medical technology. 

Departing from traditional models of innovation in medical technology, which is usually carried out by companies or licensed from universities, Smith+Nephew’s experts will work directly with university researchers to co-develop new solutions and will use its scale to bring the cutting-edge techniques to adoption more rapidly than would otherwise be possible.

The new centre will be led Professor Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena in Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, co-director of the Hamlyn Centre, whose group works on robotics for orthopaedic surgery. At full capacity, the centre will support a senior postdoctoral researcher and up to seven fully-funded PhD studentships, recruited progressively across the five-year programme, working with Smith+Nephew engineers and clinicians in the same space.

The new university technology centre will be situated within Imperial’s Hamlyn Centre, part of the Institute of Global Health Innovation and a driver of research in robotic surgery.

Research will focus on making robotic surgery less invasive and available beyond specialist centres. Research topics include markerless registration and tracking, which removes the pins and rigid markers that current systems bolt to bone, meaning fewer incisions and less hardware for the patient, and better consistency for the surgeon. Another topic is computer vision that reads and adapts to a patient’s anatomy in real time.

Vasant Padmanabhan, President of Research & Development, ENT and Emerging Markets at Smith+Nephew, said, “In Smith+Nephew’s 170^th year, we are proud to partner with a university that embodies a similar heritage in UK medical innovation. By embedding industry experts within one of the world’s leading engineering schools, this centre has the potential to move research into operating theatres at pace, transforming patient outcomes and enhancing the surgical experience.”

Professor Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena from Imperial College London said: “Translational research on health devices has historically had two main routes to patients: licensing or spinout companies. This centre establishes a third: academic engineers working hand-in-hand to help develop products with a major industry partner. There is no doubt that the innovations discovered within this centre will hold major impact for the medical technology industry as a whole and its patients.”

Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial College London, said, “Working directly with Smith+Nephew, will allow us to bring advanced innovations rapidly to the clinic, drawing on Imperial’s world-leading academic expertise and the company’s resources and sectoral knowledge. We look forward to further expanding our large-scale partnerships with industry in this space and bringing innovations in medical technology to patients more quickly.”

- ends –

Media Enquiries

David Silverman,PhD                     +44 (0)7985 230 707
Imperial College London                d.silverman@imperial.ac.uk

Charles Reynolds                           +44 1923 477312
Smith+Nephew                              charles.reynolds@smith-nephew.com

About Imperial College London
We are Imperial – a world-leading university for science, technology, engineering, medicine and business (STEMB), where scientific imagination leads to world-changing impact. 

As a global top ten university in London, we use science to try to understand more of the universe and improve the lives of more people in it. Across our 10 campuses and throughout our Imperial Global network, our 23,000 students, 8,000 staff, and partners work together on scientific discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship. Their work navigates some of the world’s toughest challenges in global health, climate change, AI, business leadership and more.

Founded in 1907, Imperial’s future builds on a distinguished past, having pioneered penicillin, holography and fibre optics. Today, Imperial combines exceptional teaching, world-class facilities and a habit of interdisciplinary practice to unlock scientific imagination.

About Smith+Nephew
Smith+Nephew is a portfolio medical technology business focused on the repair, regeneration and replacement of soft and hard tissue. We exist to restore people’s bodies and their self-belief by using technology to take the limits off living. We call this purpose ‘Life Unlimited’. Our 17,000 employees deliver this mission every day, making a difference to patients’ lives through the excellence of our product portfolio, and the invention and application of new technologies across our three global business units of Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine & ENT and Advanced Wound Management.

Founded in Hull, UK, in 1856, we now operate in around 100 countries, and generated annual sales of $6.2 billion in 2025. Smith+Nephew is a constituent of the FTSE100 (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN). The terms ‘Group’ and ‘Smith+Nephew’ are used to refer to Smith & Nephew plc and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context requires otherwise.

For more information about Smith+Nephew, please visit www.smith-nephew.com and follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook.

Smith+Nephew Forward-looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements that may or may not prove accurate. For example, statements regarding expected revenue growth and trading profit margins, market trends and our product pipeline are forward-looking statements. Phrases such as "aim", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "well-placed", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target", "consider" and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by the statements. For Smith+Nephew, these factors include: conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, economic and financial conditions in the markets we serve, especially those affecting healthcare providers, payers and customers; price levels for established and innovative medical devices; developments in medical technology; regulatory approvals, reimbursement decisions or other government actions; product defects or recalls or other problems with quality management systems or failure to comply with related regulations; litigation relating to patent or other claims; legal and financial compliance risks and related investigative, remedial or enforcement actions; disruption to our supply chain or operations or those of our suppliers; competition for qualified personnel; strategic actions, including acquisitions and disposals, our success in performing due diligence, valuing and integrating acquired businesses; disruption that may result from transactions or other changes we make in our business plans or organisation to adapt to market developments; relationships with healthcare professionals; reliance on information technology and cybersecurity; disruptions due to natural disasters, weather and climate change related events; changes in customer and other stakeholder sustainability expectations; changes in taxation regulations; effects of foreign exchange volatility; and numerous other matters that affect us or our markets, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or reputational nature. Please refer to the documents that Smith+Nephew has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including Smith+Nephew's most recent annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on the SEC’s website at www. sec.gov, for a discussion of certain of these factors. Any forward-looking statement is based on information available to Smith+Nephew as of the date of the statement. All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to Smith+Nephew are qualified by this caution. Smith+Nephew does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in circumstances or in Smith+Nephew's expectations.

^◊ Trademark of Smith+Nephew. Certain marks registered in US Patent and Trademark Office.