Connecting Technology Back to the Patient
In just 6 years, this startup has revolutionized oral surgery
New products and companies start with a vision sparked by a question. Dr. Robert Emery posed a question about using navigation
technology to aid implant surgery.
Navigating the Gap
From that question, X-Nav was formed with Dr. Emery as chief medical officer, Edward Marandola as CEO, and Chris Scharff as VP of Sales. They cultivated an A-team of engineers and developers to help fill the industry’s gap between digital implant treatment planning and surgery. The result: X-Guide dynamic navigation system, which allows dentists to extend the capabilities of their CBCT to connect digital treatment plans to patients during surgery. The technology streamlines implant procedures and improves accuracy. Scharff described it as “like a GPS for your drill, giving you turn-by-turn instructions.”
“Our challenge was to make navigation work for dentists— making it affordable, reducing its footprint, and integrating it with a practice workflow.”
Since the company’s founding, clinicians have embraced implant navigation technology. In fact, X-Guide has been used to navigate over 150,000 implants.
Patient- and Doctor-Centered
The team’s years of experience are critical to this success. They combined their expertise in technology, medicine, and dentistry to create a solution that benefits practices and patients. This isn’t the first time—some of the X-Nav team brought cone beam 3D imaging to dentistry. Surgical navigation is the next wave of digital dentistry.
“Technology should make dentistry better so it’s better for the patient," said Scharff. "But it also has to be better for the doctor—better workflow, better outcomes.” The X-Nav team plans to take that vision into future endeavors that continue to advance digital dentistry.
