Why Medtronic wants to acquire MEDICREA®? We have asked ourselves that question several times since last Wednesday the press release with that news was published. MEDICREA® is a Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) with 200 employees worldwide, which includes 50 who are based in the U.S.Its sales in 2019 were 32 million with an 11% growth compared to the previous year.
Therefore, we are not talking about the acquisition of a company that contributes large turnover to a market leader like Medtronic whose sales in 2019 were in Spine more than 2600 million $.
What is Medtronic saying? Jacob Paul, senior vice president and president of the Cranial & Spinal Technologies division, which is part of the Restorative Therapies Group at Medtronic said the following statements:
- “Medtronic will become the first company to be able to offer an integrated solution including artificial intelligence driven surgical planning, personalized spinal implants and robotic assisted surgical delivery, which will significantly benefit our customers and their patients.”
- “Combining Medtronic’s innovative portfolio of spine implants, robotics, navigation, and 3D imaging technology with Medicrea’s capabilities and solutions in data analytics, artificial intelligence and personalized implants, would enhance Medtronic’s fully-integrated procedural solution for surgical planning and delivery. This marks another important step in furthering our commitment to improving outcomes in spine care”
So what does MEDICREA® bring to Medtronic? The key reason is that Medicrea’s product portfolio includes MEDICREA® UNiD® ASI (Adaptive Spine Intelligence).
MEDICREA® is the only manufacturer (FDA cleared) able to streamline inventory required to operate as well as provide patient-specific devices, through intelligent pre-operative surgical planning. It also enables MEDICREA®’s UNiD LABTM team of biomedical engineers to more efficiently generate comprehensive surgical plans, using outcome-centered predictive modeling algorithms to optimize surgical strategy. These documented UNIDTM surgical plans also allow the operating room staff to clearly anticipate when each implant will be needed by the surgeon.
This is a critical combination as it streamlines the OR workflow with precise pre-selected implants and alignment of staff to the patient specific surgical plan and as it makes the surgery safer for the patient by reducing the chances for errors.
- VIDEO: UNiD HUB Case DataBase
- VIDEO: UNiD Workflow ENG
- VIDEO: UNiD HUB Case Creation
Which are the benefits of MEDICREA® UNiD® ASI?
Reduce costs associated with inventory and sterilization
The minimization of a system footprint provides hospitals with an opportunity to reduce costs associated with inventory and sterilization. Adding implant selection to the growing number of services associated with MEDICREA®’s UNiDTM technology enables the Company to optimize the implants provided for each surgery, meeting the market needs.
Denys SOURNAC, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, “In addition to supporting the clinical workflow, assisting surgeons in building their surgical plan and providing patient specific implants, the UNiD ASITM service platform provides radically improved implant logistics in the operating room as every implant can be planned before the surgery allowing the hospital and surgical staff to focus on the interoperative care rather than excess of inventory. Currently, manufacturers are providing a standard kit with up to 450 screws when only 2 are used per instrumented vertebrae“.
“In the situation of a set being loaned for a specific surgery, less than 10% of the inventory shipped is implanted in the patient. By pre-operatively measuring the patient’s pedicles diameter and length, we were able to reduce by 70% the amount of inventory being shipped during the beta phase. Similarly, in hospitals where inventory is consigned, we were able to optimize the number of implants and observed a reduction of inventory of 80% during the beta phase. These results are very promising, and MEDICREA® anticipates even greater reductions by the end of the beta phase.”
Perform a comprehensive patient-specific preoperative planning
The integration of an implant database with MEDICREA®’s UNiD HUBTM enables the Company to perform a comprehensive patient-specific preoperative planning that will more completely link implant selection with post- operative analyses and increase the robustness and efficiency of MEDICREA®’s proprietary predictive model. By substantially increasing the clinical and logistical data integrated into UNiD ASITM (Adaptive Spine Intelligence), MEDICREA® continues to disrupt spine industry norms and extends its leadership of the digital revolution in spine care.
Surgeons are able to instantly view metrics on their upcoming and previous UNiD™ ASI cases through the software’s dashboard upon login, with notifications alerting them of plan completion, pending actions, and tracking for personalized implant delivery. They are also able to manage their full case database from within the UNiD™ HUB directly with specialized search, organization and favoriting functionalities as well as perform powerful data visualizations and analytical reporting based on their selections.
Denys SOURNAC stated: “The entire spine industry is facing a major and structural problem with a working capital requirement reaching 20% and 25% of turnover due to the very high inventory weight in their activity, between kits consigned in hospitals, products loaned to distributors and agents, and implants in logistic centers to ensure replenishment. This model is no longer sustainable as it generates high costs and immobilizes incredible levels of cash.”
For more information about Medicrea and UNID, please visit:https://www.medicrea.com/usa/unid-asi/