Baxano Completes Auction of Spine Portfolio

The auction ended on January 22, 2015 and Baxano Surgical, Inc. successfully completed the sale of its minimally invasive spine products.

Ken Reali, Baxano’s president and CEO, told OTW on February 6, 2015 that the acquisition of the products is a “testament to the opportunity these technologies have to continue to help patients and drive growth as minimally invasive spine procedures continue to penetrate the spine market.”

Auction Winners

Here are the auction winners:

• Amendia, Inc. – io-Flex, io-Tome and bone graft harvester lines
• Choice Spine LP – VEO direct lateral system
• City Surgical LLC – Avance pedicle screw system
• Quandary Medical LLC – AxiaLIF interbody fusion technology and the Vectre facet screw system

Quandary Medical LLC is a newly formed company out of Denver. According to its web site, two out of the three leaders of the company have Ph.D.s and hold the corporate titles of directors of biocreative design and complex visualization.

Reali said Baxano, which was formed by the merger of TranS1, Inc. and Baxano, “started to gain commercial traction in the past few quarters but struggled to gain financing due to reimbursement struggles with AxiaLIF, the original core technology of TranS1, and the impact around the settlement with the government through an OIG [Office of Inspector General] subpoena issued in 2011. While AxiaLIF successfully gained a category I code in 2013 it has not yet been able to gain widespread private payor coverage.”

He added that the company settled with the government in 2013 with no admission of any wrongdoing.

According to Reali, the company hired an investment banker, Houlihan Lokey, in September 2014, to begin to look at all of its strategic options. “The company subsequently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 13, 2014, but continued its commercial operations until the successful close of the sales process through what is known as a 363 auction process. The buyers of the products were able to purchase them without any liens, liabilities or encumbrances.”

Baxano Employees to Amendia

“The Baxano asset auction presented the perfect opportunity to expand our product portfolio to meet all of our customers’ needs across the continuum of care, ” said Jeff Smith, CEO of Marietta, Georgia-based Amendia, Inc. “We are excited to welcome the Baxano employees, distributors, hospitals and surgeon customers to the Amendia family, ” said Smith.

ChoiceSpine, LP is based in Knoxville, Tennessee, and City Surgical is in San Francisco.