MAKO Surgical Corp. has filled two newly created senior vice president slots.
MAKO Adds Senior VPs
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The company announced on March 29 that Richard Leparmentier has been made Senior Vice President of Engineering. Leparmentier will assume responsibility for the company’s research and development activities, which used to be overseen by company Co-Founder, and current Chief Visionary Officer, Rony Abovitz.
The company also announced that James E. Keller is the new Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance.
Research and development, quality assurance and regulatory compliance are obviously important priorities for the company as President and CEO Maurice R. Ferré, M.D., said the company was positioning itself for future growth.
Ferré praised Abovitz’s “visionary and strategic talents which have significantly contributed to our success to date.”
Leparmentier was U.S. VP of Design and Engineering for ASML, a Dutch lithography equipment company, for the last three years. He gained his business experience at GE Healthcare from 1995 to 2006. At GE he was VP of OEC-Surgery Engineering, Engineering Manager in China, and Lead System Designer for radiographic products in Buc, France.
His engineering degree in biology and micromechanics was earned from Ecole Politechnique in France.
Keller earned a B.S. in microbiology from Clemson University and an M.B.A. from John M. Olin School of Business, Washington University.
MAKO makes and sells a robotic-arm interactive orthopedic system and implants for minimally invasive orthopedic knee procedures. The system is a surgeon-interactive tactile surgical platform that incorporates a robotic arm and patient-specific visualization technology and prepares the knee joint for the insertion and alignment of its resurfacing implants through a minimal incision.
We watched a knee surgeon from Taos, New Mexico, try the system at MAKO’s booth at AAOS. He looked like he was having fun.
MAKO has an intellectual property portfolio of more than 250 licensed or owned patents and patent applications relating to the areas of robotics, haptics, computer assisted surgery and implants.
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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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