SpineGuard Expands U.S. Sales Organization and Creates Four “Areas” to Support Growing Number of Independent Distributors Marketing Its PediGuard(R) Product Family

SAN FRANCISCO, May 08, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — SpineGuard announced today that it has expanded its U.S. sales organization while establishing four “Areas” that will enable the Company to readily support the burgeoning demand from independent distributors across the country to market the Company’s PediGuard family of products for enhanced pedicle screw placement.Effective immediately, the newly appointed “Area Sales Managers” (ASM) are: Northeast ASM Andy Fogarty; Central ASM Chuck Chester; West ASM Paul Stephan; and Tony Nichols, the Director of Training, serves as Southeast ASM. Each of these four ASMs possess between 15 – 29 years of experience driving growth and contributing to the success of companies such as Medtronic Sofamor-Danek, Synthes Spine, Aesculap, Abbott Spine, Orthofix, St. Francis Medical Technologies and Zimmer.”We are very pleased to be able to provide enhanced support to our increasing number of independent PediGuard distributors across the U.S.,” said James Coyle, U.S. Sales Vice President. “These distributors know that the use of PediGuard offers a high value proposition to spine surgeons and their patients, including pedicle breach anticipation as well as reduction of radiation exposure and surgery time,” added Stephane Bette, Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of U.S. Operations for SpineGuard.”Getting closer to our independent PediGuard distributors and to the surgeons who are integrating our bone-monitoring technology in their spine surgery practice is an important milestone in our mission to entrench PediGuard as the ‘must-have’ solution for safer pedicle screw placement, which remains the number one challenge in spine surgery,” said Pierre Jerome, CEO of SpineGuard.
Co-founded in 2009 by Pierre Jerome and Stephane Bette, former executives at Medtronic Sofamor-Danek and SpineVision, SpineGuard’s primary objective is to establish its FDA-cleared and CE Marked PediGuard(R) platform as the global standard of care for pedicle screw placement in spine surgery. SpineGuard’s product offering, including Classic, Curved and Cannulated PediGuard, has been adopted by nearly 250 spine surgeons for more than 19,000 procedures across 35 countries.