In a surprising move, Camille Farhat, President and CEO of RTI Surgical and former GE, Medtronic, Baxter and American Medical Systems executive, who was brought in by RTI Surgical Board Chair Cutis Selquist to turn this perennial underperformer around (and succeeded spectacularly) has announced that he is leaving the company.
RTI CEO Drops Mic, Exits Stage
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Mr. Farhat had been at RTI for about three years. Over the course of that time, he returned the company to consistent profitability, added three significant new product platforms—Zyga’s SImmetry SI Joint system, Paradigm Spine’s coflex technology and TETRAfuse (winner of OTW’s Spine Technology Award).
The capstone of Farhat’s tenure is the sale of RTI’s OEM business for $460 million to EU private equity firm Montagu.
His announcement comes at the same time that shareholders officially approved the OEM business sale to Montagu. Closing is scheduled for this Monday, July 20, 2020.
Camille Farhat, in one of his final comments about his company and the Montagu deal said, “This transaction is the culmination of years of work that have resulted in the completion of the first phase of our strategic transformation to reduce complexity, drive operational excellence and accelerate the growth of the Company.”
RTI Changes Name to Surgalign Holdings, Inc.
In addition to everything else, RTI Surgical is changing its corporate name to Surgalign Holdings, Inc. Its ticker symbol will likewise change from “RTIX” to “SRGA.”
The new company will be a pure play spinal implant company with a fairly significant bank account and veteran management team.
But wait…there’s still more
Curtis Selquist, the current Chairman of the Board of Directors, operating partner at Water Street Partners and former company group chairman of Johnson & Johnson Medical and Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems, who set in motion the hiring of Farhat, is also stepping down. He will, however, remain as Lead Independent Director. Stuart F. Simpson, who was Stryker’s President of the Joint Replacement Division, will assume the duties of Chairman of the Board.
Terry Rich Is Surgalign Holding’s New CEO
And taking the reins from Farhat is industry veteran, Terry Rich. Mr. Rich played a pivotal role in the turnaround of Alphatec Spine and prior to that was president of upper extremities at Wright Medical Group and, previously, held sales leadership positions at Tornier, NuVasive and DePuy Spine.
Whew.
Stay tuned for sure.
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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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