David Springer, CEO of sports medicine device company Cayenne Medical, discusses the sports medicine market and the opportunities for success in the future.
Q: What is the biggest trend in the orthopedics and sports medicine markets?
Dave Springer: Sports medicine is a great field to be in because there's a growth trend. You look at all the data from our company and our competitors and it seems like this is a high growth area in orthopedics. One reason for the growth could be that you're seeing more procedures using the arthroscopic approach, a widening demographic, and a more active aging population. I think you're going to continue to hear things about ongoing innovation in arthroscopy, shoulder and extremities care. It's an exciting space to be in.
Q: Where is the biggest opportunity for growth and development within sports medicine?
DS: For us, we've been committed to focusing on knee surgery and we know there is a lot of opportunity outside of the knee market to create the same anatomical, reproducible solutions that we have for the knee in other areas. We want to leverage these innovation capabilities in the shoulder. We have had shoulder solutions in our pipeline for a while now and we've been waiting for the right time to launch our products. We think that time is now.
Having both knee and shoulder products is important because many of our surgeons do three or four shoulder surgeries for every ACL repair, so there's an opportunity to really enhance our distribution with the shoulder. It will also enhance our knee business because if they are covering shoulder cases with our product, we can market our knee products to them as well.
Q: How is the company able to stay current in such a rapidly growing market?
DS: Our strategy is to continue to develop new products and enhance the products we have now. We recently enhanced both of our best-in-class knee solutions with AperFix II, which saw improvements made in the femoral and tibial implants as well as the inserters improving ease of use, and CrossFix II, which we enhanced by strengthening the needles and sutures. The key was making sure the products were easy to use and could create reproducible positive outcomes. We just launched that a month ago, but the early results from hospital stocking and physician feedback have been very encouraging.
In early 2012, we anticipate launching our best-in-class shoulder devices. You're going to see us take a real novel approach to the shoulder and reveal some innovative solutions there. The FDA clearance process may take some time, as the system is currently influx, but we are prepared for that. Even though we are a smaller, start-up company, we run our quality systems as if we were a large public company.
Q: Will the recent emphasis on comparative effectiveness data and evidence-based medicine have a big impact on the sports medicine market, as it is in other orthopedic markets?
DS: To this point, there has been some pressure in orthopedics from a quality, safety and pricing standpoint, but it has been outside of sports medicine. Our company would never compromise quality when bringing a product to the market; we approach quality first. We haven't had any recalls, backorders or issues with the FDA and our complaint rate is low. We are trying to do the right things every day from that perspective.
We are very focused not only on innovation, but also on evidence-based research to prove it. We are committed to working with our new medical director and figuring out what research, clinical data and education is needed to really make a difference. We are excited to have that type of physician peer-to-peer relationship on our team.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge for the company as a start-up?
DS: I think the biggest challenge is capital for start-ups. In orthopedics, it's also distribution. We are well funded and we are far down the chain, so we have actual distribution and we see profitability in the near future. We control our own destiny. The interesting thing is that we are seeing a lot of opportunities of people coming to us saying they don't want to invest financially in device companies but they want to know if Cayenne would add their product to its line.
The capital markets are much more conservative and tighter than they once were, and many good technologies have been shut down or sold off. The impact of these trends will really play out in the next three to five years as people look for innovation. There will be less innovation due to regulatory pressures and downward trends in capital financial markets, and a number of orthopedic companies have been shut down. Others are clinging on life support.
Learn more about Cayenne Medical.
Related Articles on Orthopedic Devices:
29 Orthopedic and Spine Devices Receive FDA 510(k) Clearance in June
Introducing New Orthopedic Products: 5 Tactics for Success in Today's Market
Dr. Lawrence Dorr: 6 Points Making the Case for Robotics in Hip Surgery
Dave Springer: Sports medicine is a great field to be in because there's a growth trend. You look at all the data from our company and our competitors and it seems like this is a high growth area in orthopedics. One reason for the growth could be that you're seeing more procedures using the arthroscopic approach, a widening demographic, and a more active aging population. I think you're going to continue to hear things about ongoing innovation in arthroscopy, shoulder and extremities care. It's an exciting space to be in.
Q: Where is the biggest opportunity for growth and development within sports medicine?
DS: For us, we've been committed to focusing on knee surgery and we know there is a lot of opportunity outside of the knee market to create the same anatomical, reproducible solutions that we have for the knee in other areas. We want to leverage these innovation capabilities in the shoulder. We have had shoulder solutions in our pipeline for a while now and we've been waiting for the right time to launch our products. We think that time is now.
Having both knee and shoulder products is important because many of our surgeons do three or four shoulder surgeries for every ACL repair, so there's an opportunity to really enhance our distribution with the shoulder. It will also enhance our knee business because if they are covering shoulder cases with our product, we can market our knee products to them as well.
Q: How is the company able to stay current in such a rapidly growing market?
DS: Our strategy is to continue to develop new products and enhance the products we have now. We recently enhanced both of our best-in-class knee solutions with AperFix II, which saw improvements made in the femoral and tibial implants as well as the inserters improving ease of use, and CrossFix II, which we enhanced by strengthening the needles and sutures. The key was making sure the products were easy to use and could create reproducible positive outcomes. We just launched that a month ago, but the early results from hospital stocking and physician feedback have been very encouraging.
In early 2012, we anticipate launching our best-in-class shoulder devices. You're going to see us take a real novel approach to the shoulder and reveal some innovative solutions there. The FDA clearance process may take some time, as the system is currently influx, but we are prepared for that. Even though we are a smaller, start-up company, we run our quality systems as if we were a large public company.
Q: Will the recent emphasis on comparative effectiveness data and evidence-based medicine have a big impact on the sports medicine market, as it is in other orthopedic markets?
DS: To this point, there has been some pressure in orthopedics from a quality, safety and pricing standpoint, but it has been outside of sports medicine. Our company would never compromise quality when bringing a product to the market; we approach quality first. We haven't had any recalls, backorders or issues with the FDA and our complaint rate is low. We are trying to do the right things every day from that perspective.
We are very focused not only on innovation, but also on evidence-based research to prove it. We are committed to working with our new medical director and figuring out what research, clinical data and education is needed to really make a difference. We are excited to have that type of physician peer-to-peer relationship on our team.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge for the company as a start-up?
DS: I think the biggest challenge is capital for start-ups. In orthopedics, it's also distribution. We are well funded and we are far down the chain, so we have actual distribution and we see profitability in the near future. We control our own destiny. The interesting thing is that we are seeing a lot of opportunities of people coming to us saying they don't want to invest financially in device companies but they want to know if Cayenne would add their product to its line.
The capital markets are much more conservative and tighter than they once were, and many good technologies have been shut down or sold off. The impact of these trends will really play out in the next three to five years as people look for innovation. There will be less innovation due to regulatory pressures and downward trends in capital financial markets, and a number of orthopedic companies have been shut down. Others are clinging on life support.
Learn more about Cayenne Medical.
Related Articles on Orthopedic Devices:
29 Orthopedic and Spine Devices Receive FDA 510(k) Clearance in June
Introducing New Orthopedic Products: 5 Tactics for Success in Today's Market
Dr. Lawrence Dorr: 6 Points Making the Case for Robotics in Hip Surgery