Zimmer Bolsters Joint Preservation Business; Responds To New HA Guidelines

Article preview from Medtech Insight - July 2013

 While Zimmer continues to build its knee osteoarthritis early-intervention product line, most recently by acquiring Knee Creations LLC and its Subchondroplasty procedure, controversial new clinical practice guidelines have been released that recommend against the use of hyaluronic acid injections (viscosupplementation) for early knee OA.

Zimmer Bolsters Joint Preservation Business; Responds To New HA Guidelines

Article preview from Medtech Insight - July 2013

Adding to its armamentarium for early intervention of joint preservation in the knee, Zimmer Holdings Inc. has acquired Knee Creations LLC of West Chester, PA. Knee Creations’ Subchondroplasty is a percutaneous outpatient procedure that essentially treats the bone marrow edema of the subchondral bone beneath the cartilage lesion, by injecting highly targeted bone void filler into the bone for reinforcement.

“As a company, we have been highly focused on building out our early-intervention portfolio, starting with our Gel-One hyaluronic acid (HA),” says Jeffery McCaulley, president of Zimmer’s orthopedic reconstructive division, who spoke recently with Medtech Insight. That, coupled with Zimmer’s Chondrofix (an osteochondral allograft plug for treating focal lesions) and DeNovo NT (a natural tissue graft for the repair of articular cartilage), along with Subchondroplasty, “represents, in my view, the strongest portfolio of early-intervention joint-preservation technologies in the market today,” he says. “In the progression of the disease, though, Subchondroplasty would be an even earlier intervention than either Chondrofix or DeNovo NT.” Such an array of products “really complements our leading position in total knee arthroplasty,” McCaulley explains.

Zimmer holds about a 27% share of the worldwide knee arthroplasty market, according to Cannaccord Genuity estimates. But the company clearly is widening its scope with its ongoing push into the joint preservation space, which the firm says is a $750 million market and one of its “Value Creation Framework” components. McCaulley said that Subchondroplasty “is truly a new treatment paradigm, and potentially serves a very big gap in the treatment of knee pain and in the continuum of osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee.” He notes that a growing body of evidence points to weakening of the subchondral bone as part of the process in the progression to degenerative OA. “With Subchondroplasty, we are starting to treat the underlying bone marrow edema.”

Continued...

To read this article in its entirety, purchase now, as a PDF and recieve it immediately via email. Or get it free when you subscribe to Medtech Insight Newsletter.

About Medtech Insight

Medtech Insight newsletter provides insights into the technology and market developments (devices, instrumentation, biomaterials, gene therapy, tissue engineering, etc) impacting a wide range of surgical and non-surgical clinical practices.