ISTO Technologies Appoints Chief Commercial Officer

ISTO Technologies Inc. has appointed Phillip W. Kuhn, a medical technology executive with more than three decades of industry experience, as the company’s chief commercial officer.

In the newly created role, Kuhn will oversee ISTO’s commercial strategy, including the execution of commercial activities relating to the sales, marketing, and product development for InQu, the company’s bone graft extender and substitute used in spinal fusion and other orthopedic applications.

“We are pleased to welcome Phil Kuhn, a strategic leader in the biologics space, to the ISTO team. Phil’s strong track record in developing new franchises and effective marketing programs while at Orthofix and Smith & Nephew has direct relevance to ISTO’s plan to build sales of InQu while developing new biologics products for orthopedic and spinal applications,” President/CEO George Dunbar said. “His hire will help raise ISTO’s profile among potential industry partners and is consistent with our goal to add relevant domain expertise that strengthens our ability to successfully execute our global strategy.”

Kuhn joins ISTO from Orthofix International N.V., a medical device company developing stimulation, spine, biologic, and orthopedic products, where as vice president of Marketing, Orthopedics U.S., he led all U.S. and Canadian upstream and downstream product management, medical education, sales training and marketing communications.

Kuhn previously was vice president, Strategic Marketing, at Biologics and Spine, a Smith & Nephew company, where he led that firm’s orthopedic biologic development in osteoarthritis and cartilage. He previously served in commercial leadership positions at medical products companies including Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International, Cabot Medical, Ethicon Endo-Surgery and Indigo, both Johnson & Johnson companies, and Scimed, a Boston Scientific Corp. company.

A graduate of Duke University with a bachelor of arts degree in history, Kuhn earned an M.B.A. in marketing from Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.

ISTO Technologies is a privately-held regenerative medicine company that develops products to repair and regenerate damaged or injured cartilage and bone. Its lead products are RevaFlex, an engineered cartilage implant for articular knee cartilage repair and restoration, and NuQu, a minimally invasive cell therapy designed to treat back pain and disability associated with chronic spinal disc degeneration, also known as discogenic back pain. ISTO also manufactures and markets InQu, a bone graft extender and substitute for spinal fusion applications that has been used in over 30,000 surgeries at U.S. hospitals to date.

The company is based in St. Louis, Mo.