NLT SPINE has announced that Peter Wehrly has joined the company’s Board of Directors. Wehrly brings over 25 years of experience and expertise in the medical device field, and formerly served as President of Medtronic’s $3 billion Spinal, Biologics and Navigation Division.
Peter Wehrly Joins NLT SPINE Board
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Wehrly is the Group President of Covidien plc, a position he has held since July 2011. In this position, he is responsible for the Respiratory & Monitoring Solutions and Vascular Therapy businesses, as well as the Japan, Australia-New Zealand and Canada businesses.
Didier Toubia, NLT SPINE’s CEO, welcomed Wehrly, saying in the December 4, 2012 news release, “As we prepare the platform’s introduction in the market, we are happy to have Peter Wehrly on our Board of Directors. As a seasoned executive Peter can contribute from his vast knowledge, experience and network to advance our commercialization strategy. I am positive that his contribution will be invaluable to NLT SPINE.”
Wehrly said, “Joining as a board member at NLT SPINE will enable me to work closely with a team of experts in their fields to advance the company’s impressive technology platform, which addresses important surgical problems. The ingenuity and industrious nature of the development team, characteristic of Israeli Life Science start-up companies, played a major part in my decision to take part in bringing this technology to the market.”
Asked about his first steps in this new role, Wehrly told OTW,
A key activity that I will be focusing on is helping the organization to prepare for the successful commercialization of its innovative product portfolio. NLT SPINE’s patented ‘non-linear technology’ based platform enables the insertion of implants and instruments through a small incision and in my assessment, it has the potential to make a positive impact in the spine market, both in terms of improvements to patient outcomes and achievement of cost efficiencies for providers. As an organization, one of our primary objectives at this time is to determine the most effective pathway for successful market entry to ensure that these benefits can be realized by our customers and commercial value is achieved for the company.
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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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