The Spine Arthroplasty Society ("SAS") conference continues to be the forward thinking spine conference. The meeting's growing clinical stature and technology flare attracts surgeons and companies from around the globe seeking to bring cutting edge technologies to the market and patient rapidly. Plain vanilla themeless strategies are a thing of the past and differentiators with niche strategies such as aging spine or minimally invasive surgery were getting the attention from clinicians. This year's "Motion in Miami" meeting, notably Robin Young's Technology Summit, proved that momentum and interest in new and motion-preserving technologies for the spine continues.
Industry Developments
On Thursday May 8, NuVasive announced that it will buy the Osteocel stem-cell bone-graft product and processing facility from Osiris for $35 million plus a maximum of $50 million in milestone payments over the next 18 months. To NuVasive, this adds a proprietary biologics line that should be revenue accretive and EPS neutral. Expected time of close is July of this year. Since Osiris sells the product through Orthofix/Blackstone under the brand name Trinity and that contract is up for renegotiation at year end, this transaction is regarded by the industry as yet another serious challenge to the Orthofix/Blackstone spine franchise.
The week prior to SAS, Medtronic Sofamor Danek experienced a major management shake-up. MSD head Pete Wehrly's sudden departure set the meeting ablaze with speculation. Shortly before to Wehrly's departure, longtime President Michael DeMane resigned. Popular conjecture included concerns about difficulties integrating the recent Kyphon acquisition, loss of market share in metal implants to smaller companies, the Grassley investigation. A surgeon call we listened to hosted by Lehman Brothers did not indicate any concerns about the company's technology. Despite all the rumor, the fact is only Medtronic knows the reasons for the management shake up and we'll have to wait and see the long term effects.
- Unable to resist mentioning one of our own investments here, two weeks ago Scient'x announced that it had repurchased the non-exclusive Isobar semi-rigid rod license from Alphatec thus making Scient'x the exclusive worldwide holder of the Isobar intellectual property. On Monday of last week, Scient'x announced the FDA 510(k) clearance of its dual-dampener semi-rigid rod the Isobar DUO.
- Globus Medical announced the completion of enrollment of its 380-patient Secure-C cervical disc clinical trial. This puts product launch potentially at mid-2011. The company will initiate two additional IDEs this year: (i) posterolateral disc and (ii) interspinous process spacer.
- Facet Solutions announced that it had completed a combined facet and disc replacement, that is to say a total joint reconstruction, study. In addition the company appointed Mike McCarthy, who successfully turned around and sold Endius, to its board.
- Pioneer announced that it had implanted its first cervical disc, NuNec in China. The surgeries were performed by Drs. Hansen Yuan, who recently joined our own Scientific Advisory Board, Dewei Zou and Wenwen Wu in Beijing China.
We continue to be excited about this meeting as the place to be for getting an early bird view on developments in spinal implant technology.
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