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Singapore. What does the Mona Lisa have in common with prostate cancer?

Plenty, it seems, for medical technology firm Biobot Surgical, which has named its robot for carrying out urological biopsy - to detect prostate cancer - after the famous 16th-century oil painting.

"There's a Da Vinci robotic surgical system also used for prostate cancer and more," explained Dr Li Deli, 56, the chief executive of Biobot.

"To hitch onto the popularity of Da Vinci, we named our robot the Mona Lisa," he added, referring to Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci's most famous work.

Biobot, which was founded in 2007, is counting on the recently launched Mona Lisa being a hit.

It is the firm's first commercial product, and it hopes for revenues of $2 million to $3 million from it this year. The company also aims to be listed on the Singapore Exchange by 2013.

And in 10 years, Biobot hopes to be larger than the United States market giant Intuitive Surgical, which is behind the Da Vinci robots. That is a hugely ambitious target, given that Intuitive has a market value of about US$13 billion (S$16.5 billion) and Biobot has, to date, recorded almost zero sales.

Li said that since the company was set up, it has mainly been doing research and development, and conducting clinical trials - a familiar path in the early years for many medical technology start-ups.

Funding has come from various sources. From 2007 to 2009, Li's co-founder, Nanyang Technological University professor Ng Wan Sing, helped secure research grants from the Government.

But these funds dried up after Ng's death from liver cancer in 2009, as such support is hard to obtain unless the firm has a link with a university, says Li, who holds a PhD in offshore engineering but had prior experience in the medical technology industry.

Fortunately, by that stage the company had managed to secure a $3 million investment from Australian-listed specialist equipment manufacturer Zicom.

The Government also continued to provide some support through Spring Singapore and International Enterprise Singapore.

But Li hopes that the days of total reliance on external investments and grants will soon be over.

The Mona Lisa has passed clinical trials for detecting and locating prostate cancer, and for post-treatment surveillance.

It has been approved for sale in Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and Australia for this purpose. Approval for US sales is pending.

Li says the Mona Lisa is more accurate in cancer detection and mapping than traditional methods, which involve manual biopsy.

"Even Johns Hopkins University says our technology is three to four years ahead of the rest," said Li, referring to the US institution's prestigious medical school.

The China-born Singaporean hopes to apply the technology behind the Mona Lisa to other commercial robots, providing diagnostics and surgery for liver and endo-rectal conditions.

Central to the firm's goals are the plans to mount an initial public offering (IPO) on the Singapore Exchange mainboard by 2013. This, Li hopes, will boost the confidence of hospitals in his company.

He said that he had been asked whether he wanted to go to the Catalist board - SGX's second board, featuring many start-ups - instead, but added that "I want only the mainboard because a listing there will raise our profile more."

One challenge the company continually faces is in attracting suitable staff.

"As a small company, many of the professional people - the engineers, specialists and researchers - don't believe in you and won't join you. That's also why we need the IPO, which will help to attract people," Dr Li said.

Biobot is already starting to gain recognition for its growth potential.

Yip Ai San, an associate at Exploit Technologies, who has worked with Biobot on projects since its beginning, said: "I think Biobot is a potential success story for start-ups because the people are very driven about what they believe in. They are very passionate.

"If you track back to the first prototype of the Mona Lisa, it's already version three now which has got approval for commercialisation. The technology roadmap has gone through a lot of improvements and a lot of thought has gone into it."

And Ho Chi Bao, Spring Singapore's deputy director for technology innovation, said that the technology behind the Mona Lisa "could transform the way biopsy is carried out for most cancers."

"Biobot is an example of how our local enterprises in the medical technology sector are taking the lead in creating and deploying critical solutions in response to market and technology needs," he added.

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 2553 5055.