Becker's Spine Review

25 DEVICES & IMPLANTS Stryker developing spine, shoulder applications for Mako robot By Carly Behm S tryker is working on more applications for its flagship surgical robot, CEO Kevin Lobo said in an Oct. 31 third- quarter earnings call. Stryker's flagship robot, Mako, is widely used by orthopedic surgeons for hip and knee replacement. In the coming years, Mako will also be used for spine and shoulder surgery. "We are making good progress with the development of our spine and shoulder applications for Mako," Mr. Lobo said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. "We have stopped the Cardan spine robotic project to focus all our energies on Mako and expect that the Mako spine and shoulder launches will occur in a similar time frame." Mr. Lobo did not say when Mako shoulder and spine would be ready, but he said he "wouldn't expect it next year." He added that progress on the spine application is ahead of schedule, while the shoulder project is a bit behind. Mr. Lobo said the shoulder application was delayed because the company is working to adapt it with Tornier implants and the Blueprint software. The devicemaker reported 7.7 percent year-over-year sales growth in the third quarter, according to results posted Oct. 31. Stryker's orthopedics and spine sales grew 4.4 percent year over year. n Dr. Jeffrey Carlson debuts intervertebral cage he designed By Carly Behm J effrey Carlson, MD, performed the first case with the Align Peek TLIF and PLIF intervertebral cage, his practice said Dec. 6. The case was completed Nov. 11 at Mercy Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital in Newport News, Va., according to a news release. His patient was a 39-year woman with spondylolysis, spondylolisthesis and left side disc protrusion. She met all recovery benchmarks and was off pain medication 10 days after surgery. Dr. Carlson designed the Align Peek with medical engineers. The cage is narrow and bulleted, and it is designed for minimally invasive surgery. "I wanted to create a bulleted cage to powerfully distract the disc space, narrow the width to minimize the retraction on the nerve, keep my surgical field small and allow better visibility during surgical insertion," Dr. Carlson said in the release. "All of this while manufacturing a cage that would be transparent during any radiographic procedure. It truly is a win-win for both the patient and the spine surgeon, because it allows the surgeon to be very precise, the surgical incision to be quite small, and while the implant has radiographic markers to indicate its presence, it is translucent on x-ray." Dr. Carlson is a spine surgeon with Orthopaedic & Spine Center in Newport News. He joined in 1999. n Globus Medical to turn to augmented reality By Carly Behm A s Globus Medical's robotic footprint grows, the medtech company has its eyes on augmented reality in spine surgery, executive vice president and CEO Dan Scavilla said in a Nov. 8 earnings call. Globus Medical on Nov. 8 posted $254.1 million in third-quarter sales, a 10.6 percent increase year over year. e company saw growth across its U.S. and international spine sales, and its enabling technologies segment jumped 19 percent year over year. e number of surgeons using Globus Medical's ExcelsiusGPS navigation robot and Excelsius3D imaging system continues to grow, Mr. Scavilla said in the earnings call. "Robotic procedures continue to accelerate, growing 48 percent versus prior year and exceeding approximately 40,000 robotic procedures performed to date," he said, as transcribed by Motley Fool. Mr. Scavilla discussed the future of the Excelsius platform, saying the company plans to "evolve and add" to it. "I think the closest to come out that will be a significant differentiator is going to be our XR headset or augmented reality," he said. "With that, we're going to actually shi how procedures are done, [and] add a great deal of value to the surgeons." Augmented reality in spine surgery is an emerging technology, and in August Augmedics marked its 2,000th case with the Xvision AR system. Surgalign also entered the AR spine market with its Holo Portal combined artificial intelligence and AR guidance system. n

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