Interestingly enough, not only has Dr. Blumenthal been a consultant for many a spine companies, he is now also a spine consultant for the Dallas Mavericks, God love the Blog Maverick. Of course a press release of this magnitude is always entertaining especially when someone, an authority no less, makes a blanket statement that Superion is generationally advanced over other alternatives. Can we have a little more depth and substance than that. Where is the evidence? Even Heidi Fleiss has more credibility.
TSB always finds self-promotion an art that can be practiced by some within the industry to unfathomable heights. It's interesting that no one in the industry has ever heard a public statement by any of these surgeons about Superion until they were hired to lend credibility to the product. Is it world renowned or is it another clown, TSB wants to know what our readers think?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! This is too funny!!! They never learn do they? Neither Fender, nor Blumenthal, nor Shameless.
ReplyDeleteA press release is only good when people love to be educated, but hate to be pitched to. Applied Spine Technologies is trying as well. 1/7/10 “Applied Spine Technologies Launches New Corporate Website.” 30/11/09 “Applied Spine Technologies is Awarded New Patent”.
ReplyDeleteI hope Vertiflex can pull off their IDE since raising $62 mil and no more VP of Operations who also came from IST. IST went belly up raising $75 mil. There are a handfull of executives / spine companies out there who thought they had a get rich scheme with no credibility, and now they are just trying to save their over paid salaries.
You can always get Mark Cuban to fork over some more dough, or just blame it on the economy?
I would really like to meet the financial wizards that provided Vertiflex with $62M, you know what old PT once said, "there's a sucker born every minute." Based on my knowledge of Mark Cuban, its going to take a little more than Blumenthal or Fender to pitch him to invest in this venture. To the investors, what did you think the market was going to be for Superion? Because this I am going to love to hear the elevator pitch.
ReplyDeleteBoy- $62M is a lot of coin. With all the diligence done by venture investors this is the best they could come up with. What is the compelling patent position- and what about the heap of other companies in this space? Where is the easy regulatory pathway? Where are the clinical data? This company has been around about 5 years and raised that much money. Seriously? How does one pitch that this idea as a compelling value to the patient or physician and worth investing.
ReplyDeleteBunch of lemmings.
The last I heard they were just about belly up-again. So, 62M wasn't enough. Their products have continously broke in labs, over seas (Superion) and in surgery (SilverBolt).
ReplyDeleteIt's a joke that they have these two as "Directors" where's the DOJ on this one? I'm certain there is a massive stock deal for them.
Maybe healtcare reform isn't so bad after all. This industry is making me sick.
From another infomercial. You gotta get it where you can!
ReplyDelete"As an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in bone research and spinal treatment, Dr. Shamie knows a thing or two about staying healthy through the years. One of the things he knows is that supplements play an integral role in maintaining good health. He thinks it's important to have a good balance of nutrients in your system at all times to counteract deficiencies in the diet. He also believes physicians and patients should talk more openly about supplement use and typically recommends multivitamins and calcium for his own patients, and also believes that glucosamine and chondroitin supplements should be considered for those with certain kinds of joint pain.
Dr. Shamie regularly takes a multivitamin and vitamin C supplement and occasionally takes a zinc supplement. Scoring as an AlphaWELL on My Wellness Scorecard, his other healthy habits include yoga, walking and golf."
At least Vertiflex will be able to enjoy his services for a long long time....
World Renowned - Is this like the World Series, only US surgeons qualify? Never heard of them on this side of the pond!
ReplyDeleteEuroSpine: This is TSB, out of all of our readers and commentators you actually read into what I posted. This is indicative of how ridiculous the entire US Spine Industry has become. Fender and his crack marketing department anointed them "World Renowned" and of course the investors buy into this nonsense. Thanks for actually pointing this out.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a shame that very talented spine surgeons such as Scott Blumenthal are being so maligned because a company is smart enough to recognize his talents and expertise in the field of motion preservation and ask they to be part of their company. I think if you really know Dr. Blumenthal you would see that the number of companies he has consulted with are relatively small in comparison to his peers. He is not a "yes" man and has advanced the technologies of many spine companies of which I am sure many of you as reps have benefitted from. Its funny how we throw stones at the companies that are our competitors who have surgeons on their team who have helped to make a company successful, mostly because that company will not now benefit you if you don't represent their products. There are many other surgeons out there who are so much less talented who offer nothing but their supposed charm and they make millions and are the "ladies of the evening" in the spine world, selling themselves to the next highest bidder. Let's not group all the surgeons in this category. Let us not forget that if it weren't for the surgeons and particularly those who have helped push technologies and ideas forward, we would not have the comfortable living that most of us in this business enjoy. If you had the opportunity to consult with a company for your ideas and reap the rewards from that, wouldn't you do it too?
ReplyDeleteI am too busy being a surgeon, considering that I have no interest in making company executives any richer than they already are.
ReplyDeleteBlumenthal's reputation precedes him
ReplyDeleteA company is only smart if they can manage and lead properly. But it is unlikely Vertiflex will survive once Dr.Blumenthal and Dr.Shamie recognize this without any bias in due time. How long did the ShamWow last?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteAre you the 'good' doctor or one of his suck ups? You must be.
He is hardly being maligned. Anyone that knows him knows he uses his patients as guniea pigs.
Here you go company X- this one worked... this one didn't. Next. $$$
Its the TBI way, pioneered by Hochschuler. Test any product, as long as it pays, spend more time on discussing the business issues and sitting on boards than on actually seeing patients or analyzing results. Very talented... Next!
ReplyDeleteShamie world renowned??? Since when did being a fellow of a true innovator (Zuckerman, Hsu) make you world renowned.
ReplyDeleteZucherman.
ReplyDeleteZuckerman is in NY.
I don't know Shamie, but your training doesn't qualify you as world renowned. It's a surgeon's capabilities and ability to see patients as people, not dollar signs. Again, I know nothing of Shamie.
Blumenthal?....wth? He still hasn't answered to the DOJ for his years of Blackstone business!!
ReplyDeleteOur industry needs need surgeon designers, surgeon input, and surgeons that can talk about products and pathology with their peers so getting these two on board at Vertiflex is similar to what every other public and private company does. It seems most of the comments reflect on the self-promotional aspect of the original press release. As a long-tenured marketing and sales guy I ask "what do you expect"? Should they have said "we're adding two mediocre surgeons with bad reputations to our organization in an effort to help us get another company to buy our crappy product portfolio so we can get rich"? It's called marketing! When you boil it down, Coke is sugar, carbonated water, caramel coloring etc and no different than a store brand. The marketing is what makes it "the real thing" and "most refreshing" and makes us want to "sing the world a song".
ReplyDeleteI think we all have a beef with the lack of integrity of many and the charlatans pervasive in our industry, just don't see how Vertiflex is one of them as I used to rep their products.
Can our industry find any other surgeons that would lend real credibility to their product? You seem to have a poor palate because Coke tastes better than the store brand. Marketing does not make it the real thing, it exhibits how fickle the world really is. I'll drink the Coke, while you can continue to drink the kool-aid. Thanks for your comments.
ReplyDeleteVertiflex is an excellent company. I have used there products and have been very pleased. Have not used the superion.
ReplyDelete