The federal research agency ARPA-H is backing a group of companies and universities to build robots that can treat stroke patients without a surgeon in the room. The awards, which total up to $175.3 million over five years, aim to cut the time it takes to restore blood flow to the brain after an acute ischemic stroke.
Siemens Healthineers and Philips North America lead the commercial side of the effort, with several other organizations sharing the funding. The money comes through the agency’s Autonomous Interventions and Robotics program, known as AIR, which is led by Ileana Hancu.
The core problem is access. More than half of the U.S. population lives more than an hour from a stroke center that can perform mechanical thrombectomy, the standard procedure for removing a blood clot from a blocked vessel. ARPA-H wants patients to get that procedure at their nearest hospital instead of being transferred long distances.
There aren’t enough trained surgeons to handle the caseload. The agency said just 12% of eligible patients currently receive the treatment.
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That gap is where autonomous robotics comes in. If a robot can perform the procedure remotely, a specialist could oversee multiple sites from one location. The technology would still require human oversight, but it wouldn’t need a neurointerventional surgeon physically present at the patient’s bedside.
Siemens Healthineers will receive up to $31.1 million from ARPA-H and contribute $5.4 million of its own, bringing the total to as much as $36.5 million. The German company’s work focuses on an autonomous remote endovascular robot that could perform mechanical thrombectomy without direct human input.
Stryker, which formed a strategic partnership with Siemens Healthineers last year to develop robotic neurovascular interventions, is a subrecipient on the project. The two companies are separately working on a system for elective and emergency procedures, including treatment for strokes and aneurysms.
“Early access to the right treatment makes all the difference for stroke patients. By integrating robotics, imaging, devices, and artificial intelligence, we want to transform the way endovascular therapy is delivered, towards greater accessibility and precision across a broader range of care settings,” said Philipp Fischer, head of advanced therapies at Siemens Healthineers.
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The idea of a robot performing a delicate procedure inside a brain vessel from miles away sounds futuristic, but the underlying logic is straightforward. The procedure itself is mechanical, and the bottleneck is expertise. If the technical hurdles around imaging, latency, and device control can be solved, the same specialist could effectively be in multiple places at once.
Philips was awarded up to $33.7 million to build an autonomous robot for mechanical thrombectomy and other neurointerventional procedures. MIT spinout Magnendo will receive up to $32 million for a magnetic robotic navigation platform designed for autonomous endovascular intervention. The University of California, San Diego is also among the recipients, though the specific scope of its award wasn’t detailed in the announcement.
ARPA-H, created in 2022 to fund high-risk, high-reward biomedical research, has been a target of Trump administration research funding cuts. The program’s long-term success will depend on whether the technology can move from the lab into hospitals, where regulatory approval and reimbursement questions await.
