Sam Brusco, Associate Editor10.13.21
Medtronic’s arsenal of spinal technologies is impressive—enough to land the company’s division in the fifth spot among ODT’s Top 10 orthopedic device companies report this year. The firm offers solutions for balloon kyphoplasty, bone grafting, cervical arthroplasty, drug infusion systems for chronic pain and severe spasticity, electrosurgical products, high-speed surgical drills and tools, intra-op neuromonitoring, nucleus removal tools, posterior occipitocervical upper-thoracic reconstructive systems, RA systems for bone tumors, spinal cord stimulators, spine robotics, SpineLine reimbursement, surgical imaging and navigation systems, an expandable corpectomy system, tumor management, and vertebroplasty.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Carlton Weatherby, vice president and general manager of spine and biologics at Medtronic, for an inside look into what his company is doing to further innovate in spine surgery.
(Weatherby’s input was part of an article covering spinal technology news and trends in the September/October issue of ODT entitled Spinal Orthopedic Innovations 2021: Back to the Future)
Sam Brusco: How is Medtronic’s technology addressing unmet clinical needs for spine surgery?
Carlton Weatherby: Ultimately spine surgery is still more art than science, and the clinical goal and objective is reducing variability in clinical outcomes to ensure patients can go in confidently into a procedure, where surgeons perform and execute something that will actually improve their lives and not require them to come back to try again to reduce their pain. We’ve been trying to be hyper focused on reducing that variability through a number of ways.
What’s exciting is that in the past at Medtronic we’ve been just an implant and instrument company, innovating around the implants and biologics used at the point of intervention. Now we’ve expanded our capabilities into enabling technologies and artificial intelligence and data to attack that same problem. We’ve taken another step in advanced material science, with surface technologies as well as biologics that increase the rate of fusion and probability of success. Also on the implant side, we look into enhancements in functional capabilities like efficient expansion of interbody cages and how that maximizes lordotic correction and proper sagittal alignment, which is a really important outcome for patients and surgeons.
Outside of the implant, we’re also attacking variability through our enabling technology platforms. That’s what's really exciting, the talk about us being more than an implant company. We’ve broadened our horizons in enabling technologies like imaging, navigation, and now robotics, that allow us to increase procedural precision and accuracy through real-time visualization and automation.
And we’ve now entered this realm of data science and data analytics with artificial intelligence, building algorithms for better clinical decisions. One element of that is customizing implants, where we have patient-specific capabilities and solutions and reduce the chance of malalignment or the need for another surgery, because the solution was created with that personalized patient anatomy and history in mind.
Ultimately all of these things come together in a very unique and differentiated ecosystem, where the components of the system talk and work with each other in an efficient and effective fashion, which makes it all the more meaningful, especially as we look to continue to lead in minimally invasive spine surgery.
Brusco: Please comment on recent Medtronic spinal technology achievements.
Weatherby: We have a more exciting and more robust pipeline than we’ve ever had. “We’ve got our swagger back” is the tagline I’ve been using. We’re pumping out products at a rate we haven’t seen in years—if not decades—and not just inorganic through acquisitions and investments like robotics with Mazor, nanotechnology with Titan Spine, or artificial intelligence with the Medicrea acquisition. Our organic innovation engine is humming in ways it hadn’t been in a long time.
We recently launched the Catalyft PL system, a new titanium expandable interbody system that has unique design features that increase the engagement of the anatomy and the implant, but also seamlessly integrates with our StealthStation navigation system and more simplified bone graft delivery system. While this provides both active expansion and precise angles for lordotic correction, there’s also the visualization and efficiency in the procedure—this ecosystem that works better together. We recently did a targeted market release this last fiscal quarter, and now we’re going to full market release and are excited to get this in more surgeons’ hands.
We also just launched the SpaceD access system in the last couple of months. This is a pedicle screw based base distraction and retraction system that’s compatible with our CD Horizon Solera Voyager minimally invasive screw system. This enables the procedure to be more efficient, offer all-in-one access for surgeons, and makes the procedure more reproducible. We’re not only innovating on the implant, but also on the tools and instrumentation that ultimately allow the surgeon to have an easier, more effective, and more efficient experience when doing these procedures.
There is also our Accelerate graft delivery system with Grafton DBF Inject. This enables more controlled and efficient bone graft material delivery into the disc space. It integrates seamlessly with the new Catalyft expandable interbody cage.
We are launching not just products, but procedural solutions where multiple technologies and products are coming together for a better outcome.
We are leading in not just implants and enabling technology, but also data science and analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve outcomes. We recently got approval for our new UNiD rod—the patient-specific rods that came through our Medicrea acquisition, where a hub creates a surgical plan based on individual patient conditions and anatomy. Those rods are now FDA approved for use with our portfolio of minimally invasive screw systems—think of this as a personalized, pre-bent rod prior to surgery based on an artificial intelligence-driven surgical plan that allows us to reduce malalignment or the need for a second procedure. Compare this to manually bent rods not based on a pre-op plan.
The importance of it all is they’re integrated into a comprehensive solution better for the surgeon and the patient. We’re very confident this is a great example of us leading the way in minimally invasive spine surgery.
We continue to raise the bar in minimally invasive spine surgery through our commitment of driving innovation, but also expanding our minimally invasive capabilities. We’re seamlessly integrating implants, instrumentation, enabling technologies, and artificial intelligence into a single ecosystem. That helps surgeons remove variability and ultimately leads to better patient outcomes. We’re the only organization that offers this complete procedural solution with all those components.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Carlton Weatherby, vice president and general manager of spine and biologics at Medtronic, for an inside look into what his company is doing to further innovate in spine surgery.
(Weatherby’s input was part of an article covering spinal technology news and trends in the September/October issue of ODT entitled Spinal Orthopedic Innovations 2021: Back to the Future)
Sam Brusco: How is Medtronic’s technology addressing unmet clinical needs for spine surgery?
Carlton Weatherby: Ultimately spine surgery is still more art than science, and the clinical goal and objective is reducing variability in clinical outcomes to ensure patients can go in confidently into a procedure, where surgeons perform and execute something that will actually improve their lives and not require them to come back to try again to reduce their pain. We’ve been trying to be hyper focused on reducing that variability through a number of ways.
What’s exciting is that in the past at Medtronic we’ve been just an implant and instrument company, innovating around the implants and biologics used at the point of intervention. Now we’ve expanded our capabilities into enabling technologies and artificial intelligence and data to attack that same problem. We’ve taken another step in advanced material science, with surface technologies as well as biologics that increase the rate of fusion and probability of success. Also on the implant side, we look into enhancements in functional capabilities like efficient expansion of interbody cages and how that maximizes lordotic correction and proper sagittal alignment, which is a really important outcome for patients and surgeons.
Outside of the implant, we’re also attacking variability through our enabling technology platforms. That’s what's really exciting, the talk about us being more than an implant company. We’ve broadened our horizons in enabling technologies like imaging, navigation, and now robotics, that allow us to increase procedural precision and accuracy through real-time visualization and automation.
And we’ve now entered this realm of data science and data analytics with artificial intelligence, building algorithms for better clinical decisions. One element of that is customizing implants, where we have patient-specific capabilities and solutions and reduce the chance of malalignment or the need for another surgery, because the solution was created with that personalized patient anatomy and history in mind.
Ultimately all of these things come together in a very unique and differentiated ecosystem, where the components of the system talk and work with each other in an efficient and effective fashion, which makes it all the more meaningful, especially as we look to continue to lead in minimally invasive spine surgery.
Brusco: Please comment on recent Medtronic spinal technology achievements.
Weatherby: We have a more exciting and more robust pipeline than we’ve ever had. “We’ve got our swagger back” is the tagline I’ve been using. We’re pumping out products at a rate we haven’t seen in years—if not decades—and not just inorganic through acquisitions and investments like robotics with Mazor, nanotechnology with Titan Spine, or artificial intelligence with the Medicrea acquisition. Our organic innovation engine is humming in ways it hadn’t been in a long time.
We recently launched the Catalyft PL system, a new titanium expandable interbody system that has unique design features that increase the engagement of the anatomy and the implant, but also seamlessly integrates with our StealthStation navigation system and more simplified bone graft delivery system. While this provides both active expansion and precise angles for lordotic correction, there’s also the visualization and efficiency in the procedure—this ecosystem that works better together. We recently did a targeted market release this last fiscal quarter, and now we’re going to full market release and are excited to get this in more surgeons’ hands.
We also just launched the SpaceD access system in the last couple of months. This is a pedicle screw based base distraction and retraction system that’s compatible with our CD Horizon Solera Voyager minimally invasive screw system. This enables the procedure to be more efficient, offer all-in-one access for surgeons, and makes the procedure more reproducible. We’re not only innovating on the implant, but also on the tools and instrumentation that ultimately allow the surgeon to have an easier, more effective, and more efficient experience when doing these procedures.
There is also our Accelerate graft delivery system with Grafton DBF Inject. This enables more controlled and efficient bone graft material delivery into the disc space. It integrates seamlessly with the new Catalyft expandable interbody cage.
We are launching not just products, but procedural solutions where multiple technologies and products are coming together for a better outcome.
We are leading in not just implants and enabling technology, but also data science and analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve outcomes. We recently got approval for our new UNiD rod—the patient-specific rods that came through our Medicrea acquisition, where a hub creates a surgical plan based on individual patient conditions and anatomy. Those rods are now FDA approved for use with our portfolio of minimally invasive screw systems—think of this as a personalized, pre-bent rod prior to surgery based on an artificial intelligence-driven surgical plan that allows us to reduce malalignment or the need for a second procedure. Compare this to manually bent rods not based on a pre-op plan.
The importance of it all is they’re integrated into a comprehensive solution better for the surgeon and the patient. We’re very confident this is a great example of us leading the way in minimally invasive spine surgery.
We continue to raise the bar in minimally invasive spine surgery through our commitment of driving innovation, but also expanding our minimally invasive capabilities. We’re seamlessly integrating implants, instrumentation, enabling technologies, and artificial intelligence into a single ecosystem. That helps surgeons remove variability and ultimately leads to better patient outcomes. We’re the only organization that offers this complete procedural solution with all those components.