Smith & Nephew, plc (S&N) is joining the march of ortho robots by teaming with Blue Belt Technologies, Inc.
S&N and Blue Belt Team for Robotics
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The partnership, a world-wide commercial agreement between the companies, was announced on July 10, 2014. Blue Belt will support S&N’s Journey UNI knee system in Blue Belt’s Navio surgical system. The Navio system has an open-implant architecture that allows users to select a number of different manufacturers’ implants.
The fight for robots has been fierce as Blue Belt and MAKO Surgical, now owned by Stryker Corporation, settled a lawsuit in 2013. S&N will now compete with Stryker, just as Stryker has disclosed it was seriously considering a bid to acquire S&N. There is no evidence that the agreement between S&N and Blue Belt has any connection to the Stryker/S&N merger evaluation.
Eric Timko, Blue Belt’s president and CEO, said commercial programs with “great partners like Smith & Nephew are important in allowing us to expand our market penetration of the Navio system.”
“The Navio system provides robotics-assistance for partial knee replacement procedures through proprietary CT-free navigation software and a unique hand held computer controlled bone shaping tool. The Navio system”, according to the company, “brings a high degree of implant placement accuracy along with soft-tissue balancing benefits. Since launching in the U.S. market in January 2013, more than 450 Navio assisted unicondylar knee replacement procedures have been performed.”
Scott Elliott, S&N’s senior vice president, Orthopaedic Reconstruction, said, “A concern with partial knees is that they can be difficult to align and balance. Thanks to this agreement surgeons now have a navigation system that helps alleviate that surgical concern as well as a partial knee that directly addresses implant durability.”
According to Becker’s Spine Review, a BCC Research report projects the medical robotics and computer-assisted surgical technologies market will reach $4.6 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of 7%. The U.S is also expected to account for 75% of the market over the next five years. Orthopedic applications are expected to more than triple their market share between 2013 and 2019.
That’s a market worth fighting for. Maybe S&N just made itself a little sweeter.
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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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