Orthopedic News Roundup 01-Sept-05
BY HUYEN NGUYEN, SEPTEMBER 1, 2005
This week, we decided to post the Orthopedic News Roundup for Thursday, instead of Friday due to the upcoming holiday.
Clearly the biggest headline this week is the announcement of a take-over bid by Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation ("MTF") for Osteotech ("OSTE"). Last month, MTF offered to acquire OSTE for all of its outstanding common stock for $6.25 per share in cash. However, this Monday OSTE rejected its proposal and helped drive its stock price up by 27% intraday. And the saga continues with OSTE issued a press release today claiming that MTF has wrongfully accused OSTE of unwilling to negotiate with MTF... See our analysis on what we think of Osteotech and how this take-over bid can influence their shareholders.
Clinical: A spinal implant company, Archus Orthopedics, has initiated a U.S. clinical trial enrollment of its Total Facet Arthroplasty System™ (TFAS). The TFAS™ is a device that treats spinal stenosis by replacing the damaged facet joints with a prosthetic joint implant. Follow up with our comment regarding this news release.
Distribution & Licensing Agreement: A German-based trauma and bone cement company, aap Implantate AG, has announced a sales partnership with Biomet Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Biomet, Inc., for its bone cement products. A Canadian biomaterial company, Millenium Biologix, signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for its patented tissue engineering technology which was invented by a team from MIT. Millenium will combine this technology along with the Company's own patented technology to address the need for broader clinical applications in the tissue engineering fields. Anika Therapeutics has terminated its development and commercialization contract with Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals (a JNJ company) for Anika's hyaluronic acid based cosmetic tissue augmentation product (CTA). In the same announcement, Anika has filed a Premarket Approval (PMA) with the FDA for its CTA product.
Financing: A sports medicine company, ISTO Technologies, headquartered in St. Louis, MO, received $10.8 million of financing led by Zimmer Holdings. Other investors include Alafi Capital Company LLC, Life Science Partners and Mid-America Transplant Services. ISTO's proprietary technology is to grow cartilage cells, from donors, ex-vivo, and then replace the patient's damaged cells with this chondocyte. This technology can have potential applications in both spinal disc repair and joints repair.
Product Introduction & Update: An Allograft company, Osteotech, announced the introduction of the Graftech® Lordotic Cervical Spacer to the spine market. This spacer features seven degree of lordosis and is made from dense cancellous bone. A spinal implants company, Globus Medical, has introduced the XPand™ Expandable Corpectomy Spacer and the Protex-CT™ Posterior Cervico-Thoracic Fixation System to the spine market in the areas of tumor and traumatology. Haemonetics, a copamny in the business of automated blood processing technology, announced that it has terminated a distribution agreement with Zimmer for its OrthoPAT Blood Management System. Zimmer, however, announced that it plans to enter the blood management market by developing its own automated blood salvage system. A biomaterial company, Artimplant, announced that its proprietary product, Artelon® Scaffold, is an excellent carrier for hyaluronic acid in soft tissue application. This finding was presented at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine in Linkoping, Sweden on August 30, 2005. Artelon® is made from a series of woven polymer fibers. A spinal implant company, VERTEBRON, announced the first successful implantation of its Pedicle Screw System (PSS) in Europe.
Retirement: Uwe Ahrens, aap Implante's founder and CEO, is retiring from the Board effective September 30, 2005. Next year he will be nominated to join the Supervisory Board. Mr. Ahrens has been with the company for 15 years since he acquired the Company from JNJ.
Miscellaneous: Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty, do they work? A writer at the New York Times Journal ponders the long term affect of these procedures and why are they so popular? Sinus Tarsi Implant procedure is a common treatment of choice by many extremity surgeons for patients who suffers from flat-foot caused by arthritis. At Purdue University, researchers are building a computer model to study the movement of the spine to assist the researchers at spinal implant companies. Dr. Jordan D. Metzl at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) gave advices to coaches and parents to be aware of young athletes' warning signs for physical and emotional pain due to too much athletic activity.
