AxioMed Total Disc Replacement Granted U.S. Patent

On September 8, 2020 Dr. Kingsley R Chin and engineers working at KICVentures Group were awarded patent # US 10,765,527 B2 for their AxioMed viscoelastic total disc replacement. As a result, AxioMed can soon be marketed as a smart device with an integrated sensor that can communicate with an external device to report and store data such as spinal motion, track forces, disc function and any physiologic condition programmed within the sensor.
 
“A data sensing circuit on the AxioMed disc adds to the other desirable and unique features such as multiple lordotic angles and the compressibility of the viscoelastic core,” says Vito Lore, VP of Innovations at KICVentures.
 
In a recent publication in Becker’s healthcare (Implantable sensors, advanced navigation could be next step for disc replacement) Dr. Michael Goldsmith was quoted as saying, “the next step with TDR will be to integrate sensors in the implant that can communicate motion, wear and possible loosening. This information will help alert the patient and the surgeon at an early stage when there may be a problem that warrants a visit to the surgeon.”
 
The patent provided a sensing artificial disc core having a top surface, a bottom surface, and at least one sidewall: at least one sensor disposed in or on the resilient core and a wireless transmitter configured to transmit signal representative of a sensed condition. The disc can include at least one mechanism configured to control, influence, or alter conditions of the resilient core.
 
“Our intuition told us the future will require the world to have more smart wireless devices with artificial intelligence (AI) so we moved quickly to start with AxioMed and we are grateful the U.S. Patent Office rewarded us with this historic patent,” said Dr. Kingsley R Chin, the co-inventor on the patent and a board-certified professor of orthopedics and spine surgery as well as chief executive officer of KICVentures Group who owns AxioMed LLC.
 
“We have organically built AxioMed with no institutional funding which allows us to make out-of-the-box decisions like spending the cash to invest in a wireless smart AxioMed device,” said Aditya Humad, former JP Morgan Investment Banker and current CFO and co-founder at KICVentures Group.