Bringing Modern Technology to Orthopedic Implants and Surgery

Orthopedic surgery can often seem like car repair as wrenches, hammers, and other metal tools are put to work on the human body. And just like car mechanics of decades past, surgeons with years of experience develop the necessary intuition when performing certain procedures. Hoping to bring modern innovation to orthopedic implants, and take a lot of the guesswork out of implantation and help monitor the devices post surgery, OrthoSensor, a company with offices in Florida and Arizona, has developed a system that can monitor various parameters, like movement and applied forces from within the implant, and relay the data wirelessly to the surgeon. We had a chance to ask Jay Pierce, CEO of OrthoSensor, a few questions about the innovation and how it came to be.

The company

The company was founded by an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Martin Roche, who performed a lot of hip and knee replacements, and as well trained a lot of surgeons on those procedures. Total joint replacement surgery has historically been somewhat of a feel-based art, as it requires the ability to feel when an implant is properly positioned. His students would ask him, "How do you know when it feels right?" Roche realized there had to be a way to quantify the process and give surgeons intra-operative feedback. He began a quest to develop the innovation to address this gap, founding the company in 2006 and focusing it on products that marry sensor innovation with conventional orthopedic surgery.

Designing the innovation architecture to support multiple platforms in both the short and long term was a challenge. For instance, much foresight was needed to develop a custom integrated circuit that could drive the basic needs of our Surgical Platform and as well meet the longer term, complex needs of our Intelligent Implant Platform. Getting the ASIC right early with few revisions was a strategic win in that it allowed for timely market introduction and minimized cash burn.

Another key challenge was addressing the variety of needs and priorities of all the stakeholders: surgeons, hospitals, implant companies, payors, and patients. It requires an innovative business model and the ability to communicate a succinct value proposition to each audience. For instance, we require the resources of the hospital CIO so that the cloud computing platform enabling our Analytics Platform can interact with the hospital information system. We deliver value to them because by investing their resources in facilitating our system, we are able to meet their needs for device charge capture, surgical implant records and purchasing reconciliation.

The innovation footprint for some of the smaller sizes

Early on we had challenges miniaturizing the innovation footprint for some of the smaller sizes and uni condylar configurations. Our second generation architecture enabled us to fit the research in virtually any size and any implant company's geometry.

Computer navigation has not been adopted in the U.S. primarily because of the upfront capital cost, incremental procedure time, and inelegant devices that are not built into the surgical workflow. OrthoSensor is creating a new category called Intelligent Orthopedics, which harnesses sensor research to deliver low cost, single use, intuitive devices that present data on a standard laptop, tablet, or phone. Orthopedics navigation will be replaced by consumer electronics and elegant user interfaces.

Yes, we have other intraoperative surgical instruments in development, such other balancers and alignment devices, for the hip and shoulder, as so then as spine. We are as well developing our first Intelligent Implant -- a 'Smart Knee' -- and plan to extend the research to other joint implants as then.