In Spine, a New Kind of Corporate Venturing

Innovative Spinal Technologies was founded in 2002 by the Texas Back Institute and spine surgeons Stephen Hochschuler, MD and Barton Sachs, MD, to bring together inventors, clinicians, and industry partners to help stakeholders in the spine industry get to rapid proof of principle of early stage intellectual property in spine. Corporate partners provide investment capital and industry expertise. The corporate partnerships take different forms, but generally, partners get the right of first bid for technologies emerging from IST in defined fields of use that don't overlap among partners. IST thus gives companies a foothold in spine that's less risky than an outright acquisition and a broader scope than venture capital investments in selected companies.

Spine is the hottest market in medical devices right now; analysts say it's compounding at greater than 20% because of recent advances in technology with lots more innovation on the way. Spine will be a $3 billion market five years from now, they claim. Large companies believe it; they're lining up behind spine companies as acquirors and investors. Johnson & Johnson 's DePuy AcroMed Inc. has bought artificial disc company Link Spine Group, and Synthes-Stratec acquired its own artificial disc company Spine Solutions Inc. [See Deal], [See Deal]Medtronic Inc. took under its wing disc company Spinal Dynamics Corp. and also invested in Raymedica Inc. , developer of a disc nucleus replacement. [See Deal], [See Deal] And this list only scratches the surface of major deals in spine over the past three years.

Even companies outside of the orthopedics industry want in: This past summer, Abbott Laboratories Inc. bought next-generation spinal cage company Spinal Concepts Inc. , and Boston Scientific Corp. ...

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