Smith & Nephew is closing its facility in San Antonio, Texas, and folding the unit’s operations into its endoscopy division in Massachusetts.
The move is expected to be completed by year’s end. The facility in San Antonio is the only remaining local operation of OsteoBiologics Inc., a company that developed bone replacement and soft tissue repair products. Founded by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the firm had various products that were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including a bone graft substitute and a surgical instrument designed to treat cartilage defects.
Smith & Nephew acquired OsteoBiologics in July 2006 for $72.3 million. At the time of the acquisition, OsteoBiologics employed 44 people; Smith & Nephew executives promised to maintain the firm’s San Antonio operations “for the foreseeable future.”
That future, however, didn’t last as long as management expected. In April, Smith & Nephew officials confirmed that the company would close the 30-employee facility in an effort to lower production costs. “In order to improve its competitive position in a global business environment and lower overall costs of production, the company will realign its operations,” read a company statement in the San Antonio Business Journal. “The realignment, which will take place over the next 10 months, will include: the transfer of the current core competencies of the company’s San Antonio facilities into its Mansfield, Mass., facility.”
The “competencies” being transferred to Massachusetts include manufacturing, planning, purchasing, shipping, receiving, manufacturing engineering, research and development, quality engineering and quality inspection, according to the Journal.
Smith & Nephew is providing severance packages and outplacement support to all 30 employees in San Antonio. A company spokesman said those workers can apply for any job at Smith & Nephew.
Mario Hernandez, president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, called the closing of Smith & Nephew’s facility sad but said it is part of conducting business. “Unfortunately, that’s the risk that we run when companies are acquired—the community can lose local employment,” he told the Journal. “We’re certainly sad to see that happen, but it is often part of the normal business events when the purchaser is based outside of the market. We certainly hope they’ll consider us in the future because we think San Antonio is stacked for medical technology companies like that.”
A recent economic impact study of the area shows just how “stacked” the San Antonio region is for medical technology firms. The bioscience and healthcare industry is the city’s top moneymaker, generating more than $15 billion annually and employing 113,000 people, the study concluded.
Those figures will most likely increase after Medtronic Inc. opens its new Diabetes Therapy Management and Education Center in the city later this summer. The center is expected to add nearly 1,400 jobs to the area and generate more than $750 million annually for both the city and state.
Medtronic evaluated more than 930 locations throughout the country before choosing San Antonio as the home city for its Diabetes Therapy Management and Education Center. In announcing their decision in May, Medtronic officials said the company was looking forward to “becoming an active member of the growing biomedical community in South Texas.”
“Healthcare and bioscience continues to top San Antonio’s list of leading industries. Our skilled healthcare workforce and commitment to the industry continues to be recognized by worldwide businesses,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said.
Study: Improved Hip Implants Last Longer
A new study about the longevity of cement-less hip replacements could help dispel patients’ concerns about revision surgeries.
The study, published in the May issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, concludes that total hip replacements that use cement-less components can last 20 years, or twice as long as previous versions. In a review conducted at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Ill., researchers found that five of the 124 cement-less metal Harris-Galante implants used to replace the bone that fits into the hip socket had failed over the course of two decades.
“Our results confirm earlier work done at Rush and at other institutions: that cementless acetabular components work very well and that long-term biological fixation can be obtained,” Dr. Craig Della Valle, an orthopedic surgeon and principal author of the study, said in a news release.
The implants studied were the Harris-Galante I acetabular component, whose design was based on research work completed by Dr. Jorge Galante, former chairman of orthopedics at Rush University Medical Center and a co-author of the study. Earlier generation implants, which relied on special cement to secure the device to the patient’s bones, had been shown to have higher rates of failure, particularly beyond 10 years.
“The hope was to provide more durable fixation, especially for younger patients with a longer life span,” Galante explained.
Doctors, scientists and researchers have been on a quest to find a longer-lasting artificial joint since the earliest hip replacements took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those artificial joints used a variety of materials, including muscle, celluloid, silver plates, rubber struts, magnesium, zinc, glass, decalcified bones and wax.
Since those early days, however, doctors have significantly whittled down the list of materials that can be used to make an effective implant. Most hip implants performed over the last four decades have used metals such as titanium, cobalt-chromium and nitinol, or a combination of metal and plastic to replace the ball and cup. Newer implants use a porous material to which bone can fuse to create a stronger, more durable bond.
The study published in the Journal followed patients who received hip replacements at Rush over the last 20 years. Researchers found few of the new implants failed to the point where replacement surgery was needed; a fifth of the patients experienced enough wear and tear on the plastic lining of the implant’s metal shell to warrant surgery (though it was less invasive).
“The average age of the patients in this study was 52 years, much young-er than most patients who underwent hip replacements at the time,” Ga-lante said. “So the high rate of wear-related complications was not completely unexpected.”
Researchers noted that some patients required surgery to correct osteolysis, or bone resorption resulting from the wear and corrosion of metal implants. The syndrome may not play a significant role in the future because new implants use more wear-resistant bearing surfaces, Della Valle said.
“With time, the number of repeat surgeries due to wear and osteolysis has increased, as have the numbers of cases of osteolysis we identified radiologically. But with the newer, more wear-resistant bearing surfaces we are now using, we believe that fewer patients today will need revision surgery for these reasons,” he noted.
SIDEBAR
No Jitters in This Twitter: Tweeting From the O.R.
Michael Barbella
It was inevitable.
In this fast-paced, hyper-connected interactive world of ours, there is nothing worth not mentioning. The rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have given people an inflated sense of importance about the general minutia of everyday life.
There are no secrets in cyberspace, no subject that is too racy or repulsive to talk about (or in the case of Twitter, to tweet about). Even medical procedures have become an acceptable topic of on-line discussion.
Earlier this year, doctors at a Wisconsin hospital jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and produced a
There is no place Twitter won't go. In April, doctors at a Milwaukee, Wis., hospital twittered a bilateral knee replacement surgery, using the social networking site to give brief real-time updates about the procedure. Photo courtesy of Aurora Health Care. |
live “Twitter-cast” of a bilateral knee replacement. Often referred to as a type of instant blog service where members post brief musings about their daily lives (in 140 characters or less), Twitter has grown exponentially in popularity over the last year. The seemingly simple interface belies an intricate network of more than 6 million accounts from worldwide users.
In recent months, Twitter has become popular with prominent figures in entertainment, politics and sports. Actor and television/movie producer Ashton Kutcher updates his account about 20 times a day with replies to friends or links to articles and other sites of interest. Television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey tweeted for the first time after interviewing its founders, and legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor used her account from her hospital bed to ask a friend to get her dog past hospital security.
The Twittered knee replacement occurred in mid-April at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwau-kee, Wis.
It attracted more than 2,200 followers and was shared more than 75 times through “re-tweets” to other online social networks. During the surgery, doctors and other caregivers posted more than 250 tweets, and they received 180 replies with questions and comments.
The number of people tracking the procedure through their Twitter account more than doubled, going from 930 the week before the surgery to 2,240 during the operation itself. While observers called the Twitter-cast a “natural outgrowth” of the social networking medial revolution, healthcare officials believe such broadcasts will help educate patients and alleviate fears about medical procedures.
“This was an educational experience not only for the thousands of audience members, but for Aurora as well,” said Jeff Smith, vice president of medical affairs at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center. “This event helped us to better identify the information people need to alleviate fears, dispel myths and learn about a potential procedure.”
Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site changehealth.com, agrees. “Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable,” he told CNN. “It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged.”
Whether it engages patients or helps alleviate fears, healthcare industry experts predict that more doctors (and patients) will share the blow-by-blow of medical procedures on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Alleviating patient fears is just one of the motivating factors behind two Twitters of surgical procedures at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mich. Last fall, a man tweeted his own varicose vein removal surgery as it was occurring (he was under local anesthesia), and in January, doctors tweeted the removal of a cancerous tumor from a man’s kidney. The lead surgeon in the tumor removal procedure said he wanted to twitter the operation to let prospective patients know that a tumor can be removed without sacrificing the entire kidney.
SIDEBAR
Bradshaw Medical Receives New Patent
The number 13 is usually associated with bad luck. But at Bradshaw Medical Inc., the number has brought with it a wealth of new opportunities.
The Kenosha, Wis.-based firm recently received its 13th patent since May 2007. In July, the company announced it was issued a patent for its spinal rod gripping device, an instrument developed by Dr. Hua Gao, Bradshaw’s vice president of research and development. According to a news release Bradshaw issued about its latest patent, the gripping device can withstand more than 100 pounds in rotational force without jaw slippage.
“We’re proud to be able to offer a new device to the entire spinal community,” Board Chairman Guy Bradshaw said in the news release.
The gripping device patent is the second issued this year and the third since December 2008, when the company received a patent for its racheting screwdriver silicone adjustment ring assembly. That device was developed by Joseph Post, special projects manager for the firm.
In April, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Bradshaw a patent for its torque limiting and one way ratcheting mechanism. The device eliminates the need for two separate instruments in the operating room, Bradshaw said.