Then we have Applied Spine Technology. Another product six years in the making with numerous managerial and engineering changes. Will this product ever get to commercial launch? Or, was this another product that for all it has been made out to be, never amount to anything but a loss leader? Tom Woods, J.P. Timms, Linda Golomb, and now Craig Corrance? A long line of twists and turns in providing this organization direction. Seems like the only thing that is making progress is the evolution of their website. Sooner or later, maybe, just maybe, they will get it right. As far as the product goes, it is still too costly to manufacture. We wonder if this product would have received as much attention if it wasn't for Panjabi. So, who wants to buy this device?
Disc Motion Technology is another company that has been around for a while. One of the first companies with a concept for a posterior lumbar disc, today, it is touting this system as a total motion segment. One can argue if you resect the key components that make up the vertebral complex, eventually you'll find the root cause of pain. But the bigger question is who wants all that hardware in their software? Will this product ever get to the market? An Advisory Board that contains names from the Who's Who in Spine, TSB has heard that this company has had trouble raising capital. If Andy Greenberg and a cast from dancing with the stars can't do it, who will? But the real question is, will this product ever be approved and get to the US market? It has been utilized in Europe, but word on the street is that it is being implanted at European prices.
Retrospective data can substantiate clinical efficacy, but, time is money, and, money is time. It's game time. As an admirer of those that perform the art, one thing that we all know is that doctors are terrible businessmen. That's quoting doctors not lay people. So, TSB would like to know what our readers think? Even nice people have a "come to Jesus" moment when their dreams and aspirations are overrun with a dose of reality, maybe hitting the lottery and cashing out was a thing of the past? Until then, see ya in the Treme.
Good question, TSB. So many spine companies and reserchers have developed pedicle-screw-based motion preservation systems. Are there *any* success stories?
ReplyDeleteThe Globus Transition system is the only one that works and has the testing to back it up.
ReplyDelete...and here come the Globus bashing comments. :(
I just checked pubmed and there seems to be no clinical papers on transition. did you mean human testing or biomechanical testing? Obviously if its the latter your post is silly.
ReplyDeleteWhat an ignorant statement....."The only one that works".....good luck selling that line to ur surgeons! HA
ReplyDeleteGeeeeeee...I wonder who the poster (Anon. Apr 28, 17:32) works for. Could it be Globus? How great is the Roncomatic you sell in your spare time on HSN? "Self proclaimed greatness is usually not great". You give the rest of us a bad name. Go sell cars.
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:32- yes, you are a freaking moron... and extremely green. good grief.
ReplyDeleteI just left this meeting and WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY! I won't be back next year.
This is what happens when you let financial analysts' and private equity stick their noses into our industry. Stick to being a investor and stop selling us your BS. This meeting has slowly but surely gone down hill and it will be the last meeting I attend. RIP
ReplyDeleteSAS10 was a morgue, not a symposium. In ten years in the in this industry I have never seen an exhibit floor so dead for everyone.
ReplyDeletePrecious marketing dollars down the drain. No surgeons there who weren't paid presenters for one of the disk companies. This waste of time meeting needs to go away.
RIP.... SAS.....
ReplyDeleteAlso.... anyone notice that the TSB has slowed down his posts......
Hey TSB..... have you gotten a job?
TSB - how come hardly any posts??
ReplyDeleteIs the Globus Transition any different than Dynesys? Looks like a duck...quacks like a duck....
ReplyDeleteThe weather is nice in north jersey, he is on the golf course
ReplyDeleteIf true, sounds like sour milk and envy from some of you. More power to you TSB
ReplyDeleteI was at SAS - exhibition was terrible. But, the data, science and clinical presentations was compelling. There is now more Class I and Class II data on motion preservation than there is on fusion and certainly a heck of a lot more than on hips and knees. The reimbursement dominoes should start falling soon...
ReplyDeleteBooooooring....TSB r u still alive?
ReplyDeleteEven TSB takes a vacation. I think I saw him in Hawaii last week. ZZZZZZZZ
ReplyDeleteanon 5.09, 'clinical presentations were compelling'. Who are you kidding? All the presenters have a financial interest in making it sound compelling, so the shining data they project are a couple of zirconiums fished out of a bucket of manure. Believe me, I have seen enough raw data that are at the basis of such presentations to know.
ReplyDeleteRegarding motion preservation, the German Disc Master apparently is gettin desperate for patients (read $$$...) He now even offers to repair your failed fusion with a disc. Interestingly this is only mentioned in German, not English. ("In ausgewählten Fällen ist es möglich, eine Versteifung rückgängig zu machen. Wurde ein sog. Cage eingesetzt und ist eine erneute Operation notwendig, kann dieser durch eine Bandscheibenvollprothese ersetzt werden.")
It must be hat German speaking patients and lawyers are so much easier to deal with than English speaking ones... .
In the meantime the number of unhappy recipients of motion preservation contraptions continues to rise. Two problems here: One, 80% + of these patients should never have had surgery in the first place, let alone a disc, but than of course the surgeon would not be able to charge enough. Two, the number of surgeons willing to try to salvage these patients remains close to zero. Too much risk, not enough money...
There are two words for this that exist in any language: Unethical and Criminal.
Isn't the purpose of Level I and Level II data to eliminate bias? Doesn't prospective randomization and patient-driven questionnaires eliminate the influence of the surgeon's data? You may say what you want, but data is data, plain and simple. And as for seeing raw data, I really doubt that you have an ability to single-handedly process millions of data points and thousands of images and then to do your own statistical analysis. Probably, you have seen single sites with handfuls of patients or single patient anecdotes to qualify your commentary. Trials are supposed to eliminate exactly this kind of bias (i.e. your own viewpoint).
ReplyDeleteAs for your pontification that 80+% of these patients never should have had a surgery in the first place - are you a surgeon? Do you treat patients? Did you go to medical school, residency and fellowship? Have you reviewed thousands of patient films, histories, etc.? Obviously so, because you certainly sound like an expert. Or is it that you have an ax to grind and feel compelled to vent inappropriately? And then, to call it unethical and criminal, what gives you the right to do so? Are you a judge? Boy, thank goodness our system of justice in this country is based on the principles of our founding fathers and not on uneducated and quite frankly, irresponsibly foolish views.
Anonymous 3:53 is probably not a surgeon but he/she probably works close to a bunch of unethical and criminal ones. In fact if he/she works with surgeons in this day and age that pretty much goes without saying. College degree, med school, residency and fellowship programs don't make you immune from unethical and criminal behavior. If anything it seems like most physicians sense of entitlement increases unethical and criminal behavior. Show me the surgeon in this day and age that doesn't operate way too much for the simple reason of padding their bank account. That alone is unethical and criminal in my mind; now add in all the bs consultancies, bogus studies, distributorships and cash payments and you have blatant unethical and criminal behavior. The biggest problem in medicine today is that sooner or later patients are going to loose their confidence in physicians and most physicians are to stupid to see that day coming. That would be a great topic for conversation!
ReplyDeleteanon 3.51, here's anon 5.09. I'f you think I'm going to share my educational and professional background with you, think again. It would make it too easy to identify me and I like to keep my ring side seat in this theater of fools. No axes to grind, but I do care that patients are not being used as milk cows. The fact that you think the justice system actually is functioning in keeping with the principles of our founding fathers speaks volumes. I bet you also think justice was served in Las Vegas earlier this year....
ReplyDeleteI have a question, being a patient of the so called wonderful Globus transition system. What kind of metal is the system, including the screws made of? As far as I knew, it was all made out of titanium. Just to let you know, one of the screws is broken, but the bone it is in is not. So, tell me, are you really sure that your system is the best? I surely don't think so.
ReplyDelete