DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Asensus Surgical

surgical robotasensus.com

Asensus Surgical was a Durham, NC-based surgical robotics company that developed the Senhance Surgical System, a digital laparoscopic platform that received…

Track Asensus Surgical
Founded
2006
HQ
Durham, NC
Status
acquired by Karl Storz (Aug 2024; ~$95M; delisted)

The verified answer

As of Sep 2026, DEPLOY verifies Asensus Surgical: 1 model, 3 deployments across 3 regions, 2 active incidents. 4 sources back the record.

Regulatory status2 FDA 510(k) clearances1 FDA recall

Asensus Surgical holds 2 FDA 510(k) clearances and has 1 FDA recall on record, per the DEPLOY registry.

See all 3 filings

CategorySurgical robots

Models

1

Deployments

3

Overview

Asensus Surgical was a Durham, NC-based surgical robotics company that developed the Senhance Surgical System, a digital laparoscopic platform that received FDA 510(k) clearance. The company Also developed the Luna surgical robot platform. Asensus was acquired by KARL STORZ in 2024 for 35 cents per share, which retired the Senhance platform, discontinued Luna development, and sunset the Asensus brand to create a surgical robotics hub for Performance-Guided Surgery.

Verified record

Verified deployments
3 deployments on file
Active incidents
2 incidents on file

Key facts

Product

Senhance Surgical System (FDA 510(k) cleared)

Acquisition

Karl Storz, closed Aug 22 2024, $0.35/sh ~$95M; delisted.

Former name

TransEnterix

Luna platform

Discontinued after KARL STORZ acquisition

Data & sources

Press releases

1

News coverage

1

Web sources

2

4 sources backing this record.View all →

Models (1)

View all models →

Current platform

Senhance

Asensus Surgical, formerly TransEnterix and based in Durham, North Carolina, was a public company on the NYSE American as ASXC that made the Senhance multi-port laparoscopic robotic system, FDA-cleared via 510(k) in October 2017 with subsequent instrument and indication clearances, making Senhance a genuinely cleared if relatively low-volume commercial product. The headline current-state fact is that Karl Storz acquired the company, closing on August 22, 2024 at $0.35 per share for about $95 million, a roughly 67 percent premium, with the stock ceasing to trade on the NYSE American at close, leaving Asensus a private Karl Storz subsidiary; this is the canonical example of a large medtech company absorbing a struggling robotics startup for a fraction of its historic enterprise value. The registry records Senhance at commercial maturity with an active lifecycle, since it remains a cleared product line continuing under Karl Storz, while the company status is recorded as acquired. The company's next-generation LUNA system, unveiled in February 2023 with claimed real-time clinical intelligence and cloud machine learning, was not FDA-submitted, not cleared, and not for sale as of the August 2024 close, so LUNA is recorded at research maturity, with a 2025 FDA target that is unverified as met and a current status under private ownership that is not publicly traceable. On AI substance the cleared digital-surgery features are machine-vision and digital-laparoscopy assists that are real but incremental rather than autonomy, and the Performance-Guided Surgery framing was oversold relative to what is cleared.

surgicalView model →

Relationships

AAsensus SurgicalCustomer

Explainers

Plain-language answers to the questions people ask about Asensus Surgical, from DEPLOY’s explainer library. Each is written in the language of the question and cross-checked against this registry.

What is a surgical robot?
A surgical robot is a computer-assisted operative platform that places robotic arms, instruments, and visualization systems between the surgeon and the patient. The 2026 commercial cohort includes Intuitive Surgical (da Vinci + Ion; 11,395 + 1,041 systems installed per SEC 10-Q), Medtronic Hugo, CMR Surgical Versius, Asensus/Karl Storz Senhance, Stereotaxis Genesis, Distalmotion Dexter, Moon Surgical Maestro (ScoPilot is the cohort's genuine shipped surgical AI standout, FDA-cleared with a Predetermined Change Control Plan), and Brain Navi NaoTrac (autonomous registration, not tissue manipulation). J&J Ottava (De Novo submission January 2026) and Vicarious Surgical V1 remain pre-market research per DEPLOY's FDA-clearance-as-gating-event framework. The autonomy spectrum runs from teleoperated baseline through analytics AI to narrow autonomous registration; tissue-manipulation autonomy remains research demos on production hardware, not shipped product.Read the full explainer →
Which surgical robot is most deployed?
Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci: 11,106 systems installed worldwide as of Dec 31, 2025 per its 10-K, roughly an order of magnitude ahead of every soft-tissue competitor. Stryker Mako is the only credible challenger on procedure volume, via orthopedics.Read the full explainer →

Current leadership (1)

ArrivalsAnthony Fernando from Stryker

DeparturesAnthony Fernando to Stryker

Former / Previously (1)

Safety record

2 recalls on record (2 critical). Most recent: Sep 2023.

critical
2

Most recent: Sep 2023

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →

Incidents affecting Asensus Surgical (2)

Includes incidents linked directly to this company, to its models, or to deployments of its models or under its operation. Retracted incidents are excluded from this view but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Operator customers (1)

Recent coverage

Asensus Surgical in third-party press

Asensus Senhance surgical robot receives FDA 510(k) clearance

Jan 1, 2024

Karl Storz to fully integrate Asensus, discontinue Senhance

Jan 1, 2024

Peers

43 peers across 1 segment. Every Asensus Surgical competitor derived from shared form-factor and application-domain edges.

surgical robot(43)

28 companies in this segment · moderately_concentrated (HHI 2056.2102191459944) · leader Mazor Robotics at 3317%