Hansen Yuan, M.D., resigned from the Board of Directors of NuVasive, Inc. on August 8, 2009. He resigned before his term was due to expire at the company’s 2011 annual meeting.
Yuan Changes Chairs at NuVasive
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At the time of resignation, Dr. Yuan served on the company’s compensation committee and nominating and corporate governance committee. An 8-K filing by the company on August 10 stated that his resignation did not involve any disagreement with the Company.
Dr. Yuan is a prolific inventor and serves on a number of spine company boards of directors and advisory committees.
He’s a former President of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and served on the Associate Editorial Board at The Spine Journal and the Department of Health and Human Services Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Devices Panel. He’s also a charter member and former President of the Spine Arthroplasty Society (SAS) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the SAS online journal.
Dr. Yuan told OTW that his resignation from NuVasive was because he is working on many product fronts that may create conflicts.
Chairs Advisory Committee
While he’s left the board, Dr. Yuan has not cut his working relationship with the company. He told us that he will be chairing a NuVasive advisory committee and working directly with the scientist and research teams. Being responsible directly to the CEO and the Board of Directors “is perfect, ” said Yuan.
“I enjoyed working with NuVasive and like their forward vision. Shifting to long-term strategic product identification and development is more appropriate where my interests and contributions can continue.” – Dr. Yuan
Richard Treharne, Ph.D., was elected to serve as a Director of the company and to serve on the Compensation Committee and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, effective August 9, 2009.
Treharne has over 30 years of experience in orthopedics.
From August 2006 to the present, Treharne has held the position of Vice President, Orthopaedic Research at privately held Active Implants Corporation. He also spent 16 years at Medtronic Sofamor Danek, from November 1990 to August 2006, where he served as a Group Director – Regulatory and Clinical Affairs for three months and then various Vice President positions for the remainder of his tenure, most recently as Vice President – Regulatory Affairs.
He also held several director level positions at Smith & Nephew prior to working at Medtronic. Dr. Treharne holds an M.B.A. from the University of Memphis, a Ph.D. and a M.S.E. from The University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from The Ohio State University.
They like to say “onward and upward” at NuVasive. For Dr. Yuan, we presume upward means working with scientists.
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Discussion
This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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