Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1199901
24 DEVICES & IMPLANTS How Stryker Spine approached the K2M integration and what's in store for 2020: Q&A with Eric Major By Laura Dyrda S tryker has been in the news over the past few years for its continued acqui- sitions and innovations. Last year, Stryker announced its $1.4 billion acquisition of K2M, which finalized on Nov. 9, 2018 and K2M CEO Eric Major became president of the Spine division. In Septem- ber of 2019, Stryker also signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mobius, a point-of-care imaging technology company, for up to $500 million in September. Since the date of this in- terview, the acquisition has successfully closed. During the North American Spine Society Annual Meeting in Chicago, Sept. 25-28, Mr. Major sat down with Becker's to discuss the integration between K2M and Stryker, and where spine is headed in the future. Note: Responses are edited for clarity and length. Question: It's been just about a year since K2M and Stryker came togeth- er. How is the integration going and what do you expect from the spine division going forward? Eric Major: e integration has been a lot of work for everyone across the entire organi- zation, but it has been a really exciting time. As we walked into this integration, we looked at previous spine integrations, what has gone well and what hasn't gone well, and what can make this a best in class integration so we can focus on running our business. We are about 10 months in — we closed on Nov. 9, 2018 — at NASS. Last year at NASS we announced but hadn't closed the deal yet. One of the things I'm most proud of was how quickly we moved. It was very hard, but by moving quickly what we learned was it took a lot of the anxiety and ambiguity away. Nobody at any level of an organization functions well amid uncertainty. We made decisions on lead- ership very quickly; we announced our senior leadership team on the day of the close; we put together six legacy leaders of Stryker and six from K2M, so we had leadership from both or- ganizations. We made decisions about our U.S. field leadership within three days for our area vice presidents, and our regional managers within a few weeks. en we had every single employee knowing their role on the go-for- ward team done by Jan. 24, 2019. It was a lot of work that made for a very dif- ficult three months, but it was so important for each individual, because what it does is provides them with the ability to know where their future is going and allows us to set the foundation for the business. You are bringing two sales forces together that had been competing, and then overnight they are part of the same team. By July of this year, in the first six months of 2019, we had stabilized nearly the entire U.S. sales field. Q: Was there anything from your per- spective that was really important for all team members to know as they went through the process of becom- ing one team? EM: To actually get the team to come together, No. 1 is facetime. You have to be with people. We had our global sales meeting where we brought in everyone from Stryker Spine, and we also had four very large meetings in the U.S. across May and June. ose meetings brought the entire field force together, roughly 200 peo- ple putting their hands on both product lines and getting to know each other and learning about legacy Stryker and K2M products. Lessons learned include: you have to make decisions quickly, understand that you must set your vision as to where the division is going, let people know where they sit with- in that business and then make decisions around products and get people in the field together to understand the focus of providing best in class service, responsiveness and lis- tening to our customers every day. Q: There is always more integration with the smaller acquisitions, but what are you excited about for the portfolio today and where it is headed? EM: e portfolio where it stands right now is very exciting. We have an integrated 3D printed portfolio as it stands now between Tritanium and Cascadia. We have a leading complex spine and deformity portfolio that provides spine surgeons with nearly every- thing they need to treat their patients. To- gether with EVEREST and MESA, we have built out our degenerative portfolio with the addition of Serrato. When you take a step back and look at the platform today, you really are able to sit down with spine surgeons and say we have so many of the core technologies you need to treat your patients. We are always trying to inno- vate and incrementally enhance those tech- nologies. One of the things that happens with large companies is that innovation can slow down, and it becomes more difficult to roll out new products as oen. We are excited that we have not changed our focus. e market should expect our product development en- gineers to continue launching new products to keep building out the portfolio. I'm excited about the fact that we have such a broad portfolio today that touches on degen- erative, minimally invasive, complex spine, and really allows us to help surgeons treat their patients. Q: It must have been a big change for you, after starting your own compa- ny and building it from the ground up, to join a corporation with a huge infrastructure behind it. Was there anything for you that was surpris- ing coming into that situation? What have you learned? EM: e big thing is that people have different perspectives of companies and individuals, but until you are inside, you don't know what is really going on. Being now part of the Stryker team, what has been so interesting is how close the cultures really were between the two legacy organizations. Focus on the customer and the patient: what are the needs of the surgeon cus- tomers and their patients. e other really in- teresting thing is how big Stryker is. e cross collaboration between the divisions is impres- sive from my perspective. One of the most ex- citing things has been to travel the world, meet with the spine team in France, Switzerland, Asia Pacific or Ireland, to find a way to work together and collaborate and realize that we are one Stryker and under one Stryker, when we work together, we can be an unbelievable resource for a hospital or surgeon. We have a product called SpineMap Go, which only requires two fluoro shots before you are ready for live navigation: it's pretty exciting. e one thing we didn't have was intraoperative imaging, hence the excitement around the Mobius acquisition. at really lets us offer true intraoperative imaging. Everyone on the floor is talking about en- abling technologies. It's imaging, navigation, robotics, and then virtual, augmented and mixed reality. If you pull all of these tech-