Blue Belt Assembles U.S. Commercial Team

Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Blue Belt Technologies Inc., an orthopedic robotics company, has assembled a team of commercial executives appointed to address the U.S. market. Jim Bruty has joined Blue Belt as the U.S. vice president of sales and marketing while Mike Lobinsky and Jeff Gellman have been hired as area vice presidents of sales for the East and West regions of the United States, respectively.

Bruty joins the company from Stryker Corp., where he spent the past nine years in sales and marketing leadership roles. Bruty is a 15-year medical device veteran; he has extensive experience with various companies including Brainlab, Laser Diagnostic Technologies Inc., and Johnson & Johnson.

Lobinsky joins the Blue Belt Technologies sales management team with more than 16 years of experience in the medical device industry. Most recently he was vice president of sales and marketing with BioMedix. Lobinsky is experienced in building and managing sales, marketing, and clinical organizations and in the market development of new, innovative products.

Gellman brings 20 years of experience to Blue Belt in the areas of sports medicine, total joints, navigation, and most recently, robotics at Mako Surgical Corp. During the course of his career, he has held various sales, management and business development positions in orthopedics, cardiology, and diagnostic imaging with GE Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson.

“The hiring of Jim, Jeff and Mike is a powerful first step in executing our commercial strategy,” said Eric Timko, president and CEO of Blue Belt. “We look forward to the collective efforts of these individuals in building out a sales and marketing function to bring the NavioPFS system to surgeons and patients throughout the country.”

Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, Calif., will be the first in the United States to use Blue Belt’s NavioPFS system for a knee replacement. The system is a robotic bone-cutting system intended for bone shaping tasks in the operating room. The procedure will be performed by orthopedic surgeon Kevin Lester, M.D, who will intends to use the system to perform unicondylar knee replacements–the replacement of the damaged meniscus in an arthritic patient with a plastic component to absorb shock between the thigh and shin bones.

“The Navio technology allows me to precisely plan and prepare the bone for partial knee replacements, making available a surgery that can positively impact a patient with mild-to-mid state osteoarthritis and knee pain,” said Lester. “The NavioPFS handpiece provides me precise control in a form factor that lends itself to easy integration into my operating room’s traditional workflow.”

The first knee replacement surgery using the the NavioPFS was done on Dec. 6 last year at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.

Photo of NavioPFS bone cutting tool courtesy of Blue Belt Technologies.