Corindus Vasular Robotics opened its first international CorPath GRX Robotic Center in Tokyo to educate cardiologists on robotic-assisted percutaneous coronary interventions, the company announced today.

“The opening of the first international robotic center represents an important milestone in the process of bringing precision vascular robotics to patients and physicians in Japan and around the world,” co-founder and executive vice president of international and business development Tal Wenderow said in a press release. “Japan is the third largest PCI market with approximately 250,000 annual procedures and is an important market as we grow our business internationally. We look forward to introducing our technology to the Japanese cardiology community.”

The center’s opening follows Corindus’ partnering with Japan Medicalnext, an entity of Mitsubishi subsidiary MC Healthcare, earlier this year to distribute Corindus products in Japan. The robotics company shipped the first three CorPath GRX Systems to Japan Medicalnext, which will be used in the new training center. The two companies are also working together to secure Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Agency approval for the robotics system before its commercial launch in Japan.

“Robotic-assisted PCI is a natural extension of our current capabilities and will fit well within our current practice,” Dr. Takafumi Ueno, director of interventional cardiology, Center of Cardiovascular Disease, Kurume University Hospital, said in the statement. “I look forward to seeing the positive impact the CorPath GRX System will have on patients and physicians.”

CorPath GRX is the second generation of the robotic-assisted PCI technology and improves the precision, workflow and capabilities and procedures performed by the previous model. Earlier this month, Corindus announced the first patient enrollment in the post-market study of the latest CorPath GRX System.