MMI Earns Gold Edison Award for Symani®, Recognized for Expanding Access to Life-Changing Surgical Treatment Options

Symani honored for advancing lymphatic microsurgery – from treating lymphedema to enabling exploration of new disease pathways

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MMI (Medical Microinstruments, Inc.), a robotics company dedicated to expanding treatment options and improving outcomes for patients with complex conditions, today announced its Symani® Surgical System has earned the top award in the 2026 Edison Awards in the Health, Medical and Biotech category.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s top honors for innovation, the Edison Awards recognize technologies that are fundamentally transformative, create meaningful real-world impact, and improve human lives on a global scale. MMI has earned the coveted Edison title for helping expand patient access to complex microsurgical procedures that historically have been out of reach through robotic-assisted microsurgical technology.

For the estimated 10 million Americans living with lymphedema — including approximately one in three breast cancer survivors — treatment has often meant lifelong symptom management rather than restoration. Symani is helping change that.

Surgically repairing the lymphatic system requires reconnecting vessels as small as 0.1 millimeters in diameter, and fewer than 600 surgeons worldwide are trained to manually perform lymphatic surgery due to the technical difficulty of the procedure. While millions of patients could potentially benefit from surgical intervention, many have had to solely rely on full-time compression garments and massage therapy to manage chronic swelling, pain, and reduced mobility that significantly impacts quality of life due to limited access to surgical treatment options.

Symani is the only robotic platform of its kind designed specifically for the scale and complexity of open microsurgery – helping expand surgeon microsurgical and supermicrosurgical capabilities. The system extends precision and control beyond the natural limitations of the human hand, helping more surgeons operate on microscopic anatomy with greater precision, stability, and accuracy. Symani’s novel technology and surgical instruments are helping transform microsurgery from a highly specialized, restricted capability into a more accessible treatment option for patients in need.

“Symani is fundamentally changing the way complex conditions are treated,” said Mark Toland, CEO of MMI. “For decades, surgeons performing these procedures lacked meaningful technology advancements despite operating on some of the smallest and most delicate anatomy. “We’re proud to help advance microsurgical innovation in ways that bring new treatment possibilities designed to improve quality of life to patients around the world.”

Building on its growing use in treating conditions such as cancer-related lymphedema, MMI is exploring how these same techniques may be applied to other regions of the body where unmet medical needs persist. MMI’s FDA-approved IDE REMIND study is currently investigating whether supermicrosurgical techniques can be applied to restore lymphatic drainage pathways in the head and neck, with the goal of exploring their potential role in diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

About MMI

MMI is on a mission to advance robotic technology that pushes the limits of soft tissue open surgery and opens new opportunities for surgeons to restore quality of life for more patients with complex conditions. The company was founded in 2015 near Pisa, Italy, and its proprietary Symani® Surgical System combines the world’s smallest wristed microinstruments with tremor-reducing and motion-scaling technologies to address significant unmet patient needs across the globe. This first-of-its-kind surgical robotic platform for open, soft tissue micro-level surgery can help address microvascular repair and lymphatic repair. In Europe and APAC, it also addresses peripheral nerve repair. The Symani System is authorized for use in the U.S. by the FDA and is a CE Marked medical device in Europe. MMI is backed by global investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company, Andera Partners, BioStar Capital, Deerfield Management, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Panakès Partners, RA Capital, Sambatech, and Wellington Partners.

Media Contact
Laura Bastardi, MWW Health
mmi@mww.com

Investor Relations
Lisa Croke, MMI
lisa.croke@mmimicro.com

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.