Live from NASS: Medicrea Plants Feet Firmly in U.S. Market

Over the past year, French company Medicrea has seen its U.S. revenues soar to 60 percent of its global revenue. The company’s vision has been not to spread itself too thin in the spine device market, but rather to focus well on a few products. This year, after 12-18 months of focus on patient specific devices, Medicrea has released the UNiD system in the United States. The system works via a proprietary plug-in with Nemaris Inc.’s SurgiMap software, through which surgeons can upload regular X-ray images of a patient’s complex spine deformity and order custom titanium or cobalt chrome rods that are delivered in less than 7 days—in fact the average so far, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development David Ryan told ODT, has been 3-4 days.

Custom medicine is burgeoning as additive manufacturing and other techniques develop fast to accommodate patient needs case by case. The UNiD rods, however, aren’t 3-D printed but industrially contoured from standard rods to fit each patient. Surgeons can select the material they are most used to using. The first rod was implanted in a patient in Europe last year, and the system was officially launched there in April. The U.S. launch coincides with this year’s North American Spine Society (NASS) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., being held from Nov. 12-15.

“We are growing strong and fast in the United States, more than in other markets,” Ryan told ODT during NASS, explaining the history of Medicrea’s presence in the United States. “We understood two years ago that we didn’t have a chance to compete [in the United States] selling all sorts of products with all of them being better or different but not groundbreaking. We decided then to really focus our energy in the United States on the most differentiated product and technique we had in our range, our pedicle screw system, which allows us to address those complex type deformity surgeries. This was the first step that led us to what we’re doing today. We feel that we have a great opportunity to introduce to the market not only a product but a whole service and help surgeons come to a new level in the way they handle surgery and patients. That will be our focus over the next two or three years.”

Medicrea’s U.S. headquarters are in New York, N.Y.; last year, the company had six “spine deformity consultants” working this side of the Atlantic, who worked with surgeons to help them understand the UNiD system—today, that number has grown to 15. But in truth, UNiD does not present a large learning curve. Because surgeons are simply using standard X-ray images they have been using for years, and the rods are made from materials they know well, there is little time wasted on learning a new technology.

“We did not want to build a system that would require new imaging or even new X-ray standards,” Ryan explained. “We also did not want to add time to the surgical timeline. Surgeons who want to start tomorrow will start tomorrow.”

Medicrea does take training seriously, however, and the company will be starting training courses for surgeons in the first quarter of 2015. The courses will cover all the technology Medicrea offers.

“Our goal between now and the end of the year is to introduce our products with key opinion leaders in the United States, and starting next year be able to open up the doors to those training courses,” Ryan said.

Medicrea, which makes spine implants, is headquartered in Lyon, France.