Company Dedicated to Keeping Costs Low Expands its Product Offering

Have you heard of the Orthopeadic Implant Company? Yes, that’s their actual name— simply the Orthopeadic Implant Company (OIC). The company was formed in 2010 by collaboration between practicing orthopedic surgeons and industry professionals in an attempt to develop products that are low-cost yet high-quality. According to OIC, orthopedic device companies have had a “stranglehold” on pricing in the market, which is unfair to patients, the community, and the healthcare system, company officials claim. At its founding, OIC pledged to save more than a billion dollars in healthcare costs by 2015.

OIC’s implants are 50 to 60 percent of the average market price of premium implants, which the company claims could potentially save healthcare systems millions of dollars a year.

OIC is not a physician-owned distributorship. The company is a device manufacturer with ISO 13485 manufacturing facilities, and all implants currently made are U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved.

The three men who make up the board of directors are Peter Althausen, M.D., who serves as chairman and treasurer; Itai Nemovicher, president and secretary; and Timothy Bray, M.D., director.

Althausen, who also holds an MBA, currently serves as a visiting clinical professor at the University of California Davis Medical Center and University of Nevada, Reno. Nemovicher gained most of his implant experience at orthopedic giant Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics. Like Althausen, Bray is a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at U.C. Davis Medical Center and maintains a clinical affiliation with the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He also is active in multiple national and international orthopedic surgery organization.

Members of the company’s management advisory board are: Neil Glass, chief financial officer at Ziff Davis; Lisa Slaughter, CEO of Reno Orthopaedic Clinic; Ann Symonds, senior vice president of Material Resources at Memorial Health Services; and Mark McMahan, CEO of DGI-Med.

OIC has just released a new pedicle screw system. The line of screws is designed for stabilization and fixation during posterior spinal fusion procedures.

“Our pedicle screw product line represents a simple, intuitive system that can save hospitals and surgery centers up to $3,000 per fusion level,” said OIC’s vice president of business development Mark Medina.

OIC claims the new system provides surgeons with a range of implants with reliable and reproducible results. The system includes poly-axial pedicle screws, rods and cross connectors for posterior lumbar fusions. The system’s set-screw design purportedly prevents cross threading, and components are color-coded by size for easy identification.

Other products offered by OIC are cannulated screws, drill bits and siding hip screws in the trauma sector, as well as disposable drill bits in the disposables sector. The new line of pedicle screws forms the entirety of the company’s spine products.