What You Should Know:
– Brainlab, a digital medical technology company based in Munich, Germany has acquired Level Ex, a digital health startup creating medical video games designed to advance the clinical skills of physicians and surgeons.
– The acquisition will accelerate product development, allow Level Ex to enter new clinical areas faster, and expand its footprint in global markets, benefitting more medical professionals across a wider-range of specialties and cases.
– Level Ex will continue to operate as an independent company—with its own product roadmap. The acquisition of Level Ex by Brainlab marks the first acquisition of a video game company by a major international healthcare company.
Brainlab, the digital medical technology company, today announced the acquisition of Level Ex, a Chicago-based company that creates medical video games designed to advance the clinical skills of physicians and surgeons. The Level Ex expertise and product portfolio align with the broader Brainlab strategy to drive value creation across the healthcare data economy. The acquisition of Level Ex by Brainlab marks the first acquisition of a video game company by a major international healthcare company.
Today, the balance between data, technology, and people plays a critical role in healthcare’s digital transformation. Brainlab recognizes that there is an urgency to deliver agile and scalable solutions in the immersive, virtual and mobile space to help drive meaningful development and the adoption of digital medical technology across the value chain—concept and development; sales, education and training; clinical decision support; global access; and consistency of treatment. The company is already integrating Level Ex technology across vertical and horizontal products with the Brainlab 3D Viewer software and a virtual sales tool for the company’s ExacTrac X-Ray patient position and monitoring system.
Creating Video Games for Doctors That Captures The Challenges of Practicing Medicine
Founded in 2015, Level Ex is now considered one of the most innovative gaming companies as well as one of the healthcare industry’s “unexpected disruptors.” With a user base of more than 600,000 medical professionals including half of the medical students in the US, Level Ex keeps healthcare providers current in their specialties through presenting the ongoing challenges of practicing medicine as highly rated mobile games featuring continuing medical education (CME). The company is also helping NASA build a framework for future astronaut medical training through a prestigious grant from the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH).
“We began working with Level Ex in 2019 for several reasons,” said Stefan Vilsmeier, President and CEO of Brainlab. “They are the best at disseminating best practices through video games, and they are unrivaled in their level of ergonomic user interaction, gaming-industry-quality 3D graphics, precise physics models and game mechanics psychology.”
Acquisition Benefits
With support from Brainlab, Level Ex plans to further expand its team to support demand from global markets and its growing partners that already include 6 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, as well as global medical device companies, and medical societies. It is also set to release new games in the areas of dermatology, orthopedics, and oncology over the next year, alongside its popular games in general and interventional cardiology and airway management.
“Brainlab is leading the digital transformation of medicine, starting with a near-term future where new technologies and data sources are seamlessly integrated into the digital operating room. In a world where the operating room and patient are digitized, Level Ex will provide the onramp through game technology and design, enabling doctors to develop their skills and confidence on new devices and techniques in a video game, before they enter the OR or clinic to diagnose and treat live patients. Brainlab will also continue to use Level Ex to expand its reach, leveraging our game technology and design to help surgeons better visualize patient data and understand the applications of new Brainlab technologies.,” said Sam Glassenberg, founder and CEO of Level Ex. “I can’t imagine a better place to fulfill that mission than Brainlab—a company that has fiercely advanced the cutting edge of medicine for decades and continues to build platforms that service broad ecosystems in healthcare.”
Post-Acquisition Plans
The Level Ex team brings a wealth of experience to the Brainlab group with backgrounds in large platform companies, digital health, and the video game industry. The 105-person company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brainlab at the end of May and will continue to independently operate from its downtown Chicago office retaining its name, management team, and medical and surgical gaming product lines.
The financial terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.
