Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey everyone, Tom Salemi here of Device Talks. Welcome back to the Device Talks weekly podcast. Great episode for you today. A little later I reconnect with Eric Timko. He's the CEO of Ortholine now, but we know each other from way back. You'll find out how before that. Chris Newmark and I will cover this week's Newmarkers newsmakers. But before we begin the podcast, I want to invite you to take part in a few Device Talks events. Next week we've got our Surgical Robotics webinar series.
It's a four part series, noon on each day, noon Eastern on each day.
On Tuesday, it's Beyond Soft Tissue Surgical Robotics. That is with the surgical robotics expert Steve Bell. On Wednesday, I'll speak with Prash Chopra.
He's the founding CEO of Petal Surgical.
The title of it is Making Healing Human Reimagining the Surgical Standard of Care at its core. On Thursday, I will speak with Harel Godot. He is the founder, CEO and president of Microbot Medical. We'll the discussion is entitled Creating a new category of Surgical Robotics to Enable Accessibility for all. And then we'll close the series out on Friday with redefining eye surgery through robotics and AI. Al will be talking with CEO and co founder Jean Pierre Hubsman. He will talk about it's a surgical robotic systems directed toward eye care. So interesting conversations, each and every one brought to you by our great sponsors. We've got a bunch of them. New England Wire Technologies, Novanta Bay Cable, Bakkers, Harmonic Drive, Aerotek, Electrocraft, Vantage Medical Mount and Maxon. So thank you to all of our sponsors of that event. To register, go to device talks.com can watch it live, get your questions answered. If you watch live, you can also watch On Demand. We won't be able to take your questions if you watch On Demand. So do try to tune in live again, go to devicetalks.com, register for one. Register for them all. They're all, all free and available to you. Hope to see you there. Also, of course, we have Device Talks Minnesota coming up on May 4th and device talks Boston coming up on May 27th and May 28th. All right, let us get this podcast started.
All right, you ready for this?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Ready.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: How are you, sir?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Hey, doing well, Tom. Doing well. Happy Friday, man.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Happy Friday. Getting back. I got back last night from the Medtech Innovative Radar Forum. It was an excellent time.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: That's fantastic.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Congratulations to the Medtech Innovator team fun event. Nice to be in Southern California. Of course came back it was a little chilly. It was probably like in the 40s when I got back. But it was like I always stepped
[00:02:55] Speaker B: up, a little shiver after that LA
[00:02:57] Speaker A: weather into the, into the walkway and you're like, oh, I don't like that anymore. But I'm, I'm back now.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: There you go, you're back. You're back in the New England back weather. So that's right.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Back, back to my, my deadless, senseless self hardened and untouchable by, by the cold. But it was a great event. Great, great time.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: That's great. And you got to, yeah, you got to meet in person our new associator, Skyler Rivera.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: I did. Yes. Skyler exists. Yes, yes. Yeah, she presents just as she does on Zoom. She's doing a great job. I talked about her having, I talked with her, but having her on the podcast and she's done so many great write ups about our past podcast conversations. So we have to have her on the Newsmaker sometime.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Absolutely, that'll be great. But yeah, you know, I noticed on LinkedIn, when you're talking about the Radar forum too, from Medtech Innovator, I mean, it was, it was a positive experience. I mean, we had all, I mean, you gotta admit, I mean, there's all this awful, crazy stuff going on in the world. But I mean, going to that, that forum, I mean, just the amount of startups and I always find it hopeful talking to startup people who run startups. I mean, it's such a risk to do it and there, there often are like so many just like really fascinating, positive ideas, you know, So, I mean, but I, it felt, I mean, you felt some energy there. There was.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, it was very, very positive, uplifting energy. As always with the startup presentations, what I will say about the event and I talk about this, I recorded a couple of videos with him.
The process, the conference includes, and I did one stint as a judge.
The pitches are done at a traditional roundtable that you'll see at any wedding or conference.
A one person pitching to four or five judges. And over a two hour span the judges would hop from table to table. I think we did four. So you'd get like a half hour or so or 20 minutes or so with each. So there would that be sort of a pitch and then sort of conversations back and forth. And then at the end of the day the judges would convene and they would basically argue or, or review each of the presenting companies. And, and those that really liked to pick a company would argue in Favor those that found flaws, would argue against or at least point out shortfalls. Not arguing against anybody. But it was a really educational process for me to sit in the. I did once. One, I sat in the deliberation room one of the days and just to hear these folks who are physicians and med. Med tech executives and regulatory experts all bringing up really amazing points about these, these startups. It just made me really appreciate how complex this industry is.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: How many things startup executives need to contend with, how many problems they need to anticipate. So kudos to those folks out there who are starting medical advice companies.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: It ain't easy, man. It is not easy. There's so many things that can go wrong. So it was uplifting and eye opening at the same time.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: And honestly, there's a lot better industries to go into than MedTech to make a quick buck. I mean, if you're doing a medtech startup, I mean, you gotta eat it because you're caring about this stuff. You want to actually like advance care for people and help people out and make some money too. That would be nice to do along the way. But yeah, it's.
It's definitely not, not an easy road.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And the other uplifting part of the conference was the. The fda. There are a lot of FDA executives there, including Michelle Tarver. She gave a keynote talk, sat on a panel with the leader of the FDA's TAP program and of CMS's I think it's Access program, both of which are designed to create clearer pathways for startups. They were involved in many sessions throughout the day and, and one of the more interesting things was the announcement or the introduction of a new private equity group called White Oak 66 that includes former CDRH director Jeff Shern and Doug Kelly, who I've known for a long time. He's a VC with Alloy Ventures, invested and started a lot of great companies back then. He was of course, the creator of the TAP program.
He left last year. So White Oak 66 is basically looking to continue the mission that they had undertaken at the FDA and help medical device companies figure out a clearer path to commercialization, find better ways to engage with societies and with payers and with CMS and to smooth that out. So I think there's a real sense at actually staying on the hopeful track. There was the White oak principals, including Dr. Sharon, Dr. Kelly, Rusty Segan and Joel Shill, two other physicians who also have a lot of experience in medical device.
As medical device executives and in writing CPT codes or leading FDA offices. They were on a panel and I had asked basically, you know, what. What did we. What should we expect over the next couple of years in terms of whether things are going to get easier or not? And the message was that there's a lot of things coming down the pike that can. That'll make things easier for medical device companies and startups.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: That's great to get commercial.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: So we seem to be trending in the right direction. So it was a very, very uplifting conference. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: That's very heartening. I mean, especially considering all the doge chaos yet last year. And, you know, we. We've definitely heard around a lot. I'm sure you have to like the staffing problems at fda. And I mean, there's. They just only have. It's not that they don't want to be helpful, they just don't have. They only have so much, much time. And, you know, and, and so here there's some stuff coming down the pike. Plus, like, we got, like, people smooth the way for people, you know, from a position in the private sector. I mean, that, that's good news because, I mean, I think it's been a great accomplishment that over the past decade, we really did get to the point where, like, devices were coming out in the United States first, you know, because we'd figured out a way for FDA to work better with the industry while maintaining safety and efficacy under the industry.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: I'd hate to say that slip away. I mean, it would be depressing to get back to more like when we were starting out covering this industry, where it's like, well, something gets approved in Europe and then it gets approved here, or it gets approved in Japan and then it gets approved here.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
If I shared any of those concerns, they were lessened considerably to my answer to my question about what we can be hopeful about.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Dr. Kelly, Doug Kelly said Michelle Tarver is one reason to be very, very hopeful that she's. She's very committed to change, very open to engaging with industry. So I would anticipate a continuation of the, the good vibes that we've had between industry and FDA in the coming years.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic. Well, Tom, you know, I know you only have so many minutes. You can like, be like a word here.
Need to get some rest, man. So let's jump in, we'll do these new markers newsmakers really quick, like, help keep people informed here.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: All right, let's roll on to number five.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: All right, so number five on the list. One of the things we've really like ramped up on mass device in recent years has been special reports.
And we just this week launched our free mass device transcatheter heart valve special report. This was written by Carrie Neptune, a veteran medtech market analyst.
This report's nearly 100 pages and she does a great job just putting together a really nice analysis and forecast of where the industry is going to be going in coming years saying there's going to be a cadger of 8.4% for the rest of the decade, which is fantastic.
Just encourage you just look up mass devices transcatheter hard file special report. We got a special reports link right at the top of device like go. You know we can download it for free and I get a lot of great insights.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you to our Mario. Great looking at the sponsor page right now. A lot of great sponsors of that as well. So. Excellent.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Really? Yeah, thanks to our sponsors for sure.
You know, because we do need to pay the bills around here. We do need to light pods. So it's thank you for, you know, thank you for their support so we could like get this valuable information out to the industry.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: All right, great. Number five. What's number four?
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Chris Newmarker, number four on the list. Strikers Ban. You know they got, I mean, oh my gosh, they, you know they, they, they, they felt they got to feel the Iran war firsthand. Having a ran back hacktivist group basically wiping out data on Stryker's Microsoft based IT system last month. But they've you know, now disclosed in the SEC filing that it's, we're, we're talking Friday morning, April 10th.
You know our, our great senior editor Sean Hooley got the, got the news out this morning that you know, Stryker says in a filing they've fully restored operations. I mean man, Tom, I mean I was just saying this on LinkedIn this morning too, that I mean it's great, you know, strikers got things back. But I, I think there's going to be more of an awareness among medtech companies like cyber attacks, you know, especially when you know, if you're US based and the US gets itself in a really bad foreign policy situation that you know, you could be, you could, you could definitely got to keep an eye out about, you know, about your systems. It's not like suspect that in the past there's been, well actually I know there has because I mean on mass device and MDO over the years, you know, we pose a cybersecurity story and people are like it doesn't get a ton of clicks. People. I don't think people in the industry say it's a top concern, but I've always wondered whether it really, really is. But I, I think this was a wake up moment. Yeah, no, for the industry.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: I'd be surprised if it wasn't already a top concern. But I clearly this is is an example of what what can go wrong and, and what can go right. I we're talking about March 11th was a disclosure. Here we are just a month later.
They they seem to be have already restored operations. So things are moving forward. So whatever they did, there's a playbook. Hopefully it's something that others can can learn from and copy from. Hopefully the industry will will band together to to develop some some responses to these sort of things because as you know, I've talked about this probably isn't going to be the last time this happens.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: You know, you just got the thought in my head if anybody who's a higher up at Stryker is listening. I think this would be a great interview for this podcast when the dust is settled enough for someone who helped manage this crisis to come on here and kind of provide some useful advice for other people in the industry. Because I'm sure everybody around the industry is kind of saying how are we going to respond to this if it happens to us in the future?
I think it'd be great to hear from somebody in Stryker about how they handled this.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: And our industry is certainly one when it comes to device design and other things. You need to play things close to the chest or the vest or whatever you want to use.
In this case. I think we need to share some knowledge. Industry as a whole is strong and ready to move forward.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: It kind of reminds me just, I mean man, just a few more weeks. Device Talks Minnesota, May 4 I mean, one of the keynotes, Heather Knight CCO of Solventum. But I mean, I mean Heather, you know, helped manage things, basically manage Baxter's response to having, you know, their, their iv, the top IV solutions plant in the world pretty much getting like hit by a major climate climate change event and you know, North Carolina.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Helene. Yes.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, you know, you know, people at Heather, Heather and others at Basket Baxter didn't like hold back like, oh, this is, we're not going to share our secret sauce of how we respond to a climate disaster.
You know, they're, they're really great and forthcoming about, you know, how they manage that crisis and it's going to be fun to listen to. You know, you discuss that with her, you know, at device talks Minnesota in
[00:14:39] Speaker A: just a few weeks actually that'll be conversational. Be led by our managing editor, Kayleen Brown.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. Yep, totally.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Yep. All right, let's roll in.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: That'll be a great Kayleen interview. Like absolutely.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: It absolutely will. Let's roll into number three.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: All right, number three on the list we've got, you know, Johnson Johnson. They're bringing their next gen veripulse pulse field ablation catheter to, to Europe. The Veripulse Pro system, it's received CE mark approval but the, you know this, this next gen version of their PFA system, it comes in five times while they're, they're saying it has a low tem and the ablation comes in five times faster than the, than the previous sequence but still achieves equivalent lesions. So they're really driving forward to have like an even more efficient PFA system. So it's just great to see like so many different, different systems like coming out onto the market and developing in developed countries and you know it's, it's, it really seems to be advancing, you know, advancing what can be done with ablation to, to treat afib and other, you know, you know, heart related problems. So I mean, yeah, this is great. It's going to be really, really fun to see how things develop going forward.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: This is the pulse field ablation space Atrial fibrillation Space is the fastest growing sector within Medtech and it's amazing all the companies out there related another company that's working on this technology, Pulse Biosciences and I announced that Leanne Teplitzky is their new CEO. Leanne Teplitzky who's with Artadrone. Before that Zimmer Biomet been on the good friend of device talk. So congratulations to her and to Pulse Biosciences.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: All right, Kristen, Michael, what is number two?
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Hey, number two on the list we've got former.
This was a nice scoop from our managing editor Jim Hammer. And that Brian Miller, veteran executive vice president of veteran executive at Intuitive. He's, he's, he's loved and he's going to be. He's now a CEO at Sovato.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: You know, looking to enable telesurgery with all kinds of, you know, software systems and standards and whatnot. So kind of exciting move and kind of kind of like at least a bit to me signals like that. I mean you know people would talk about tele surgery for a long time but I mean maybe this is finally the Moment. This is.
This could happen.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Yeah. As I stated on LinkedIn, I was surprised to hear that Brian left intuitive. I was surprised also because Brian and I had a conversation last summer where you seem to, for me at least press the brake pedal a bit on telesurgery is like, okay, yeah, how do you do that?
But Brian clearly sees an opportunity. We'll be talking about that at Device Talks Boston.
He and I will sit down for a keynote conversation. But on my LinkedIn post, Steve Bell, who actually I'll be talking with next week on our Surgical Robotics series. We'll have Surgical Robotics presentations by Steve Bell. We'll have Microbot, we'll have Petal Surgical, and we'll have Horizon Technology.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: It's gonna be a great live Tuesday,
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at noon. Go to deviceox.com to register. Steve said that in my, on my post, he said, I think the bigger picture is beyond telesurgery.
True robotics in all area of health robotics. And yes, teleconnected systems have a big role. Getting the backbone and networking sorted is a big need. So this goes beyond telesurgery. Just maybe sort of building a robotic infrastructure for healthcare going forward.
Something that'll be necessary with all the workforce issues facing healthcare. So Brian clearly has big ideas and can't wait to talk to him about it.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: If people want to get a little more of a tease of where that's going to go.
On top of Jim's story on Mass Device, he has a nice kind of like deep dive with Brian Miller on medical design outsourcing. That is top of the site right now. But I thought it was interesting too. And Steve commented on Jim's post about this.
You know, Brian was, you know, saying that he thought the technology was there. He was saying that he, that it's really like figuring out healthcare basically. Administration, reimbursement, how do you, you know, so, and which I mean is a lot of, that's a lot of the things that Savada is trying to, to do.
And Steve was basically like chiming in on that on LinkedIn and like, yeah, that's about, about right. So yeah, it's, it's fun, challenging. Maybe, you know, it could be too. Like, you know, people reach a certain point in their career, I'd be interested to hear at Boston. But you know, people reach a point in the career where it's like, hey, I want to, I want a challenge, I want to run something, I want to get captain of the ship.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: You know, absolutely everybody who, everyone wants to. I think at a certain point wants to be their own boss and master
[00:19:26] Speaker B: of my destiny, the master of my fate.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Afforded the opportunity to lead a startup like Savato that could, could be blazing trails for healthcare. It'd be a difficult opportunity to pass by. So.
All right. And you had some other intuitive related news too, right?
[00:19:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: You know, associate editor Skyler Rivera had a really good article about a Corsome. I interviewed their, you know, CEO for this podcast, like, about a year ago, if I recall. Right. But I know that, you know, Corsome CEO Chris and Mazzi, this is like the former Livanova heart valve business. But I mean, one of the big things that they've been, you know, talking about is that, you know, I mean, they're in the surgical heart valves business versus Transcatheter. But I mean, Christian in the past has told me that, you know, they really saw robotics as a way to, you know, surgical heart valves in a more minimally invasive way without having to, like, crack someone's check chest open. And here they are with the first human use of a robotic delivery system that, you know, that they designed to deliver their sutureless percival Lancelot aort valve in a surgery using a da Vinci 5 as well. So we've got DaVinci 5 as well.
That's the intuitive play in there. Intuitive has really been kind of going back to the roots and looking at using robots and cardiac surgery as well. So it's kind of neat to see that advancing forward. And here's to hoping that people having their chest sawed open is going to be a thing of the past eventually.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: That sounds fantastic. All right, Kristen Merker, big number one as well.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah, the big number one. I mean, gosh, a big name and. Well, a big name leaving and a big name coming at. Hologic, which has gone private after being acquired by. By private equity firms Blackstone and tpg. You know, like, like that deal is now closed. And Hologic announced this week that Steve McMillan's retiring. And the new person they're bringing in, a CEO is someone we know well, as you know well, two former Baxter CEO Jose Almeida.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yep. Joe Almeida, who, of course was CEO of Covidian before its merger with Medtronic or during its merger with Medtronic. Then of course, to leave Baxter left that post.
Was it last year or two years ago? When did he leave Baxter?
Time flies.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Time does fly.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah. February 2025. So a year ago he retired from Baxter. Now he's.
He's back with hologic. It's going to be interesting to see. I Don't know. I imagine the complexities are different managing a private equity held company as opposed to a public company. I'm sure there's a lot of things that are simpler. Not having analyst calls every quarter I'm sure will be much simpler not having answer to analyst estimates and probably not
[00:22:15] Speaker B: going to miss that.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah, probably not going to miss that at all.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: It'll be fun having the private equity owner scrutiny of the business as they look to define deficiencies, I'm sure. But still not, not, not as, as I'm sure it's, it's, it might be a relief compared to having to like, you know, constantly report on your business and have analysts ask, you know, helpful but possibly also very unhelpful questions all the time.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: I'm sure the questions aren't bad. It's just the, the, the YouTube.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Where's your profit?
[00:22:50] Speaker A: We expected 7% growth and you only got 6.8. And so.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: We're going to ding you something severely on the stock side. So that's got to be, that's got to be trying.
All right, well, you know, I think,
[00:23:02] Speaker B: you know, it's, it's wild. I think the first I, you know what, man? I think the first time I met you that I chatted with you was like way back in the Obama administration, you were, you were interviewing Joe Almeida at like some pre device talks event around here in Minneapolis.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's now the COVID MedTech MVP conference. But it was a Medtech conference back then before Adam had called their conference the Medtech conference. Yeah, I don't, I don't, don't think I interviewed him on stage, but we did do an on camera interview after talking about innovation. I remember that he was great to talk to. And actually prior to that I went down to. When he was a committee and I drove down to Marlboro and sat in his office and did a, did a magazine article interview Chris Newmarker. I had to write stuff down. It was crazy, crazy technology.
Wow. Writing things, wrote something and it was,
[00:23:55] Speaker B: I mean you write things for writing.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: I used to do that all the time.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I was the same way. I mean I used to just be like a newspaper reporter and all those photos and headlines, that's somebody else's thing. I'm just like gonna tell this story. And now like here we are, we get, you know, we're so much more advanced now, just yucking it up on, on a podcast. Talk about that.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: We're, we're multimedia, baby. Congratulations to Joe Almeida.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: And congrats to him.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Congrats to you, Chris Newmarker. Great. Top five. Where can folks find the top five news stories every single day of the week?
[00:24:28] Speaker B: If you want it every single day? I mean, just go to Mass Device and right near the top of the homepage, you know, we got something to subscribe to our daily E Newsletter. So you can get that right in your inbox and get a nice roundup of the top Medtech news of the day.
But as always, like always, great to have you listen here and while you're, you know, jogging or on the bicycle, you know, exercise machine or, you know, or just, you know, playing us in the background or whatever, you know. That's fantastic.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: I did run into Brent Lavin this week at the MedTech Innovator Radar Summit.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Unfortunately, he was driving in his car this time when he listened to it, so all of our encouragement was for naught. But if he's running now, Brent, if you're running now, go get it.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Do this, man. You do it.
I'm sure we at least we gave him a good laugh last time. That's good.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: I hope so.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: He appreciated the show playing this day.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: All right, Chris Newmarker, great job.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Take it easy, man.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: All right. Thanks, Chris Newmarker. For this week's Newmarkers newsmakers, once again, I'd like to invite you to come to Device Talks Minnesota on May 4th. You can register at minnesota.devicetalks.com Got a great lineup of speakers, including the conversations we mentioned in the Newsmakers.
We'll be opening up with Heather Knight of Sylventum. Midday, Chris Newmacher will talk with Mike Blue of Histasonics. I will speak with MedTech legend Manny Vilafana. And then we'll close things out with my conversation with Lisa Earnhardt of Abbott. In between all of that, we have a lot of great industry discussions and technical presentations that I know you'll enjoy. Go to minnesota.devicetalks.com to register. Now it's time for my keynote conversation with Eric Timko, CEO of Ortholon.
Well, Eric Timko, welcome to the podcast.
[00:26:16] Speaker C: Great to be here. Tom, good to see you again.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: You as well. We were just talking before I pushed the record button about I think it was an AOS probably a decade or so ago, if not more, where I first met you. And you introduced me to Blue Belt, which was the first handheld ortho surgical robot that I used.
So I want to sort of revisit that experience in a little bit But I want to take you way back to your start in your career. How did you find your way into the medtech industry?
[00:26:44] Speaker C: Yeah, so I, I had a father who was the consummate salesman, and he told me coming out of college that I needed to sell something, whether it was insurance, whether it was cars, just to learn how to ask for a check. And so I ended up selling real estate in Hilton Head, South Carolina, literally right out of college.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Really?
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Great place, great spot.
Selling condos and houses to seniors was, was pretty easy at the time, so. So did really well coming out of the gate and ended up sell to a guy who told me he was a sales rep in the medical device industry. And after getting to know him and closing on the property and becoming good friends and golf partners, I found out he was the CEO of one of the largest major med tech companies. And he said selling real estate is, is no direction for a 21 year old. Why don't you come over and give medical device a try? And wow. He actually retired as soon as I joined. And so I kind of made my career moving up the ladder just by hitting numbers and doing my thing. And then, you know, the rest is kind of history. I got in it state and what, 35 years later, here I am.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: That's amazing.
I love your father's advice.
What is learning to sell?
What skill set does it give you? And do you agree with his words? Did you tell your sons the same thing I do?
[00:28:02] Speaker C: I think the one thing is resilience, right? I mean, you've got to just keep pounding away and pounding away and you're going to get a ton of no's. But then you start figuring out what a yes looks like and what it took to get there. And I think once you figure that out, it gets a little bit easier. And I tell my team all the time, look, try to open doors, but the ones that close, don't, don't, don't leave them closed, keep hitting them. You know, just keep going back around and around and around because things change and sometimes, you know, it comes back around for you.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: That's great. And, and what did, what was the first thing you were doing in medtech? What were you selling?
[00:28:36] Speaker C: I was a sales trainee at Siemens Medical Systems learning how to sell MRI, CT scans, cath labs. But back in that day, back in that day, you had product specialists. So, you know, I was really the point of contact for the account.
And then I would bring in the gurus that were really proficient in the technologies, but then I would get to the ability to be a closer and try to figure out how to shut them down and get them to use our technology.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: That's great. And are the skills that you learned in real estate, do they carry over to devices? Is a sale of sale, or is it a completely different ballgame?
[00:29:12] Speaker C: No, I think it absolutely carries over. Especially I just remember the early days where I would show people a bunch of properties and then let them let him leave. And was having a hard time paying for food for the first six months because I wasn't selling anything. And my dad said, you know, same thing, are you asking for a check? Are you asking which house did they like the best? Which piece of property do you want to buy? Instead of saying, hey, great day, hope you like it, call me back.
And so that's really kind of changed my mindset significantly. And it's carried to everything I've done, whether it be, you know, a sales rep, whether it be management, whether it be being a CEO, you know, you just have to push to make sure you get the results you're looking for and find a way to make it happen.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: So what did the, how did the 90s play out for you? It looks like you moved pretty quickly from sales into sort of executive roles.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I moved up the ladder very quickly at Siemens. Loved it. Spent 10 years there and got to that 10 year itch where I think I was running, you know, all imaging for everything west of the Mississippi. So I had a big business that I was accountable for. I think, you know, six or seven or eight managers underneath me. But I wanted to run a company. And at that point in time I went to Siemens and said, hey, look, you guys have treated me really, really well, but I want to run one of your companies. And they, you know, in a very positive way put their arm around me and said, that's great, you will in time. You're too young. And as soon as I heard those words, I knew my, my time there was limited.
So I started using, you know, connections and relationships. And I've always been a relationship guy, so started using relationships, put feelers out and next thing you know, I got a call from a company called Zeiss, which was a, was a great opportunity. And so I ran all microscopy for Zeiss for several years and just a great run. Had the opportunity to kind of blow up the organization from a direct sales force to a distribution model. Those things are rock solid. They don't break. So if you have a technology that you only see the customer once every five, six years because there's an upgrade coming or something that's not a good model. So we went and carried Neuro and ENT optimized etymology distribution to allow carrying our product and flourished and thrived. And that's still the model today.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: That's amazing.
Introduce me to that. Eric Timko, 10 years in, who knew you wanted to run a company? What was it inside of you that said that I want to run a business? And the words I'm hearing from this person who is my superior, is more experienced, probably has greater insight. How did I know what he was saying? Did I didn't, didn't relate to me that I, that I had to choose a different path?
[00:31:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, Tom, it was, it was pretty straightforward. I was performing at every level and I mean it sincerely, by surrounding myself with the right people, I knew what my skills were and I knew what my skills weren't right? So making sure that I had the right people supporting me and that I could, you know, do what I do best, which is establish relationships, build credibility, you know, keep it very straightforward, on the forefront of, hey, here's our job, here's what our results need to look like. And the more I did, did that and the more I think I, I, you know, met expectations, then I, then I got to the point where I'm like, okay, I, I can, I can do this at a bigger, broader, better level and really have a better impact and, and, and a better impact on my family. And so, you know, I think I, I wasn't, I wasn't in a huge hurry. Things just happened very quickly. You know, when I hit that, like I said that 10 year mark with Siemens, I'm like, okay, you know, whether it takes a six months, 12 months, two years, whatever it takes. But it happened very quickly when Zeiss came calling, which was fantastic.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Do you believe that folks have a 10 year clock that, well, we all have the same clock where you have to kind of take a moment, assess what you're doing, decide if you want to do something new. Do you advise people to do that or just.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: I do. I mean, I think that, you know, first of all, the grass isn't always greener, but if you don't, if you don't ever walk on it, you're never going to know. And so, you know, I tell my team that if somebody gets a better opportunity, even those especially that I don't want to lose, I, I don't, I don't fight to keep them because again, if it's in your mind that you want to do something or try something different. You surely have to let them, you know, take that leap and see what happens, and then, you know, if it doesn't work out, welcome them back. I'm not. I'm not afraid of that at all. And I think that that's, you know, kind of the right messaging to give somebody that especially that has been performed for you, you know, hey, thank you for everything. I realize that your. Your career path may take some turns. Go get. Get it.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: That's great. So then I see you were CEO of Nervous. Is it Neurovasics or Neurovasics?
[00:33:52] Speaker C: Yeah, Neurvasics.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: I'm trying.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: I remember the name. I remember reading it, but never said it.
So that was more of a startup situation, I imagine.
[00:34:01] Speaker C: Definitely a startup. So I was running Neuro for Zeiss at the time, got a call from a neurosurgeon who was a dear friend and said, hey, there's this company in need of a CEO, had a founder, and it could be a great opportunity for you and your family.
That's how I actually got to Minnesota back in the day.
And so I did a lot of exploratory work. Again, neurosurgery was Zeiss's largest business. So I had an audience of all the right neurosurgeons to kind of run the technology by and really look at what the game plan would be. And it was a great opportunity. I loved it.
And then we hit that bump, called the fda. That's when FDA was really struggling, approving anything and everything, and tough time. And, you know, in. In neurosurgery, hydrocephalus was something that was coming out of some companies that were using polymer. The material that we used, excuse me, was a polymer, but it was extruded so it wasn't leaking or seeping. But the FDA basically came back and said, based on everything going on, you need to do. I think it was a 2000 patient study back in the day.
And to get this thing, to get to the approval clearance process, and from a financial standpoint, we sat with the investors and said, this is years and years of work, and you don't know the answer. So tough ending, but great experience. Again, great technology, still should be out there. Treating large and giant aneurysms is really devastating to those that haven't. It's difficult. And this was the technology that would have made a great impact.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Going back to the physician or the surgeon who referred you to the job or mentioned the job to you, how it's great that I assume he's a client of yours a customer, or was he? What was the relationship? And if he is a customer or is she a customer?
Is it unusual? It's great to have a customer who thinks so highly of you that they're saying they're giving you a job recommendation or directing you in a certain way. I think that's pretty cool.
[00:36:03] Speaker C: Cool. Yeah. I will tell you, Tom and I, again, very blessed. As I said, I focus on relationships.
Neurosurgery is a very, very tight, tight group. Right?
It's those brilliant people who are doing something every day that is so challenging and so difficult. And so I was able to become very close with what I would say, the world leaders in neurosurgery, especially in the United States. And this gentleman, by the way, his name is Nick Hopkins. Rest in peace. He passed away. N was a great friend and, and a mentor and. And. And Nick was just a. A wonderful influence in my life and, you know, one of those guys that said, yeah, I'm here to help. And so we. We did a bunch of work together and, like I said, just really built on. On personal relationship that carried over and. And he really was supportive and, you know, helped me in a lot of different ways.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: I never had the. We ran a podcast with him. It wasn't. I didn't do the interview. I never had a chance to talk to him, but what a special man. Nothing but wonderful words about himself.
[00:37:06] Speaker C: What a special man.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So let's move into Blue Belt. CEO of Blue Belt.
You just talked about your love of neuro, your appreciation of neuro. Blue Belt is a completely different company in a completely different sector.
What was it? Was there a challenge or was there any hesitancy to move into ortho in robotics?
[00:37:30] Speaker C: There was. You know, I think that based on my relationships and everything that I had done in neurosurgery, I really felt like that was the place that I would end my career in. But when I saw Blue Belt and I did my, you know, typical market research, just not, you know, reading but. But making phone calls and talking to all the right people, I realized that, you know, this could be something that not only was a trend in orthopedics, but. But obviously in other technologies as well. We all knew what Intuitive was doing.
Of course, Mako was. Was out there as well. Blue Belt and Mako were, you know, coming kind of coming out at the gate at the. At the same time. We were, what I would say is a fast follower to Mako. So Mako laid the groundwork on. On partial knee replacements, and then we came right behind. But I think the, you know, the jump to go from neuro to ortho wasn't as difficult as I thought. Again, relationship business, understanding exactly the needs of customer. Where does the technology fit? What's the impact in patient outcomes that makes the most sense? And when we looked at partial knee replacements, unis really difficult procedure.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: And so while if I'm a patient, that's much better for me, if I'm a surgeon that doesn't do a lot of them, I'm not really that proficient at them. So having a technology that could make an impact there in what was a growing market at the time, thought would be really, really good to do. The company was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I actually am born and raised in Pittsb, Pennsylvania.
So funny story. The recruiter called me and he said, you know, this is a great opportunity for you, Eric. I think you're a perfect fit. They love you. I said, yeah, you've told me everything but the location. He said, I did it on purpose. He goes, it's not a great area. And I said, really? Try me. He said, pittsburgh. I said, obviously, you didn't do your research. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Huge Steeler fan. Right? Let's go.
So jumped on board with blue belt. We then looked at really where to commercialize the company. And candidly, I was still living in Minnesot, and Pittsburgh is not a hotbed for medical device companies, but Minnesota is. So we decided to keep our development team founded out of Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. And then I built a commercial team in the headquarters outside of Minneapolis. And we just had a great run. Really enjoyed that experience.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: Talk about that time, because you're right, There was Mako, that was blazing trail. There was Conformis, which was the 3D printing sort of customized implant. And there was a real question at the time, which of these technologies is going to be the one? Mako had the lead. Some were saying the customized implants were a better way to go. And you were there, as you said, kind of just following along.
That was a bit of a. I don't want to say wild west, but it was an exciting time for ortho. You don't usually see that much disruption in orthopedics.
[00:40:21] Speaker C: I would agree with you. And to this day, I credit that. And that word disruption is a word that we use a lot at Ortholine, but I credit the word disruption as. As really our intent. Right. We knew that. We knew that, you know, the procedure was difficult Like I said, for surgeons, we also knew the acceptance of doing something completely different would be very, very difficult.
So we, we really sat in a room and spent a bunch of time figuring out a. Accuracy is table stakes. Not, not, not even in question. But the other piece of the puzzle was efficiency and how do we come become efficient? And then the final piece is as it's still this way.
Mako Stryker needs imaging. Right. So needs a CT scan. And we said from the start there's, there's a better way.
And so we, we developed Navio, which was the product at the time, to be image free and so more efficient, very strong outcomes, great accuracy, but image free.
And at the time we were implant agnostic and we didn't have an implant. So, you know, we're able to put in different implants coming out of the gate, which I think was also very helpful.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: It's interesting that you listed all those benefits.
You didn't mention price at all. Does price like as being a fast second, a fast follower? Can you win on price or do you have to check all those other boxes and prices sort of secondary?
[00:41:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I think again, like you said, wild west. So back in the day, I think the price conversation was something that was occurring especially when you looked at, you know, bringing in what was a big behemoth of a system that was, you know, pretty expensive. But at the time, and, and this was kind of the moral to our story. Every time you sold a Mako, they would, they would put a zip code restriction around where they would put another one. And so if you put it in downtown Atlanta, that whole area of downtown Atlanta could only have that Mako that was sold, I think it was six months, one year, whatever, whatever the time frame was. And so we, we, we loaded up our sales team and said every time they put a Mako there, go to every other hospital around it and let's sell some stuff.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Stuff.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: And, and it worked out really, really well. And, and we moved our revenue pretty quickly. We were price competitive.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: You're literally fast following. You're, you're absolutely.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And, and, and intentional, you know, it was, it was very, very intentional. And I think the, the other thing that I think we did really, really well was we became very efficient. We, we focused so heavily on time studies to make sure that, you know, burring a uni that seems so tedious at the time could be done very, very quickly.
Several surgeons, I mean, we would hold these labs and contests to see exactly what technique because the system worked beautifully. It just did what it was supposed to do. But if you just, you know, did it, you know, methodically and tediously, you know, it would take a while. So we. We got to the point where just. Just run the burr over the. Oh, the bone, because it's not going to go outside your boundaries, and you're going to get a great result. And once we kind of got that, you know, dialed in, that's when we really started to. To gain traction. And then, of course, Smith and Nephew came calling.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: That's right. So how did. How did that. We'll. We'll close out this, and then we'll get into Earth alive. But how did the deal come come to be? Were you shopping or did they come. Come and knocking?
[00:43:41] Speaker C: No, no, we weren't shopping. We, you know, we were everybody's friend. So we were putting in some zipper implants, we were putting in some Smith and Nephew implants. We were putting in, you know, ANOVA implants back in the day.
And so. So all. All of those things were in place. So I would say that we were in conversations with everybody, deputed, you name it, right?
And in the dark of night, we got the call from Smith and Nephew and said, you know, we want to do this, and we want to do it very quickly. And, you know, it was a great outcome for our shareholders and our team, and I think it's done really, really well for Smith and Nephew. I think, you know, Corey is now their latest and greatest, and I think it's a good technology.
And I know based on the discussions that I've continued to have for years since the acquisition, they're very pleased with the outcome of what's transp. And it's a good arrow in their quiver.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: How does that feel to see a company through that sale?
You were probably excited about what you were growing. I doubt you had the itch yet. And yet suddenly someone comes in a positive way and says, okay, we'll take it from here. Is that an easy transition for you? I mean, obviously, there's benefits to you that allow you to go on and do something different, but still, if you're really digging what you're doing and really believe in the tech, it must be kind of jarring.
It was.
[00:45:03] Speaker C: You know, and as a matter of fact, we were just getting started, right. You know, we were at 10 million in revenue. So, you know, we had a. We had a pathway that we thought would be really, really exciting, because again, once Mako started to take off and then Navio started to take off, of course, then everybody else was scrambling for you know what was next. So, you know, I think it took really the culmination of a, of a great, great situation and a great deal for it to happen.
I will tell you, the transition for me was not easy just from the standpoint of I was in it day to day. And of course, as soon as we closed Smith and Nephew in a very positive way, said we need to put our footprint on it, not yours. And so I stuck around for a little while just to help in the transition for about six months just to help in the transition. But during that time, I became a better golfer and a better fisherman because it really didn't need me at the time. But, but it was great and, and, and again took. They were very fair and, and treated us great. And to this day, a lot of my team is still there and still thriving and still doing, doing their thing. The headquarters that Smith and Nephew built in Pittsburgh, around the corner from the old Blue Belt headquarters, is spectacular and a lot of the history is still in the building, which is very cool.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: That must be neat for you as a, as a Pittsburgh. Nice.
Your work led to a new company coming there and employing folks in the area and being a fixture of the landscape there.
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Yeah. You know what was interesting and it was a fact that it blew my mind, but Blue Belt and Navio was the first FDA approved technology that came out of Carnegie Mellon and commercialized.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:46:44] Speaker C: Which was shocking to me.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
[00:46:47] Speaker C: You think of Carnegie Mellon and when I heard that back in the day, I was like, huh, pretty impressive. And, and so we had to just a. We had access to such smart but, but energetic and talented individuals that just, just thrived on just being challenged. So it was a great, great, great run.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Great robotics town and beautiful, beautiful ballpark too. I got to go a couple.
[00:47:10] Speaker C: It's.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: It's awesome.
[00:47:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: So let's, let's talk about Ortholine.
What is. Let's what?
Before we get into how you got there, let's talk about what's the problem that Ortholine is solving?
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it goes back to kind of our mission is to make sure that technology is available for all surgeons and all patients in every hip and knee procedure.
While I have a great history with robotics, you're not going to have a robot in every or. And so we believe that every patient should have enabling technologies to get a better outcome.
It goes back to those three simple facts. You know, it's accuracy, efficiency, and cost effectiveness are our table stakes. And we don't veer from that. So everything we do at Ortholine kind of goes down that same pathway.
We're the worldwide leader in handheld technology for a reason. Our outcomes are as good or better than all of the robots that are out there. I know that for a fact, based on my experience.
But we really pride ourselves in being very, very efficient and giving the surgeon what they need, not anything they don't need. So we don't want to barrage them with complexities. We want to keep it simple and deliver to them exactly what they're looking for.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: So explain to me what your devices do. The lantern, you have a lantern hip and a lantern knee. I'm looking at the device on the website. I don't know, it looks kind of like a thick iPad or something like that. Probably a little smaller than that.
[00:48:43] Speaker C: Yeah, we like to say it's an iPhone in the stereo field.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Okay, there you go.
[00:48:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if you look at, and you think about it and, and we, we tell this story all the time.
You know, there's a different technology that's right for everything you need to do throughout your day, meaning you and I. So you carry a backpack or a briefcase and in there you probably have a laptop, you probably have an iPad and you probably use an iPhone. And you know, the, the, the biggest, probably and most go to technology in your backpack is your iPhone. It's in your hand all the day. So it needs to be simple, easy to access, efficient, have everything at your fingertips versus all of the other things.
We believe that lantern is that iPhone. So yes, for certain outliers a robot may make sense.
For other applications, there's other technologies. But for the down and dirty day to day patient that just needs a really good hip or knee outcome, what we provide is like I said, accuracy, simplicity, simplicity and efficiency in a form factor that's like an iPhone. The surgeons love it. It's extremely sticky and it's become a great go to. We'll do over 70,000 procedures this year.
And it's just because surgeons trust us, they know the system is accurate and they, like I said, get through a few cases and they stick with us because it's so sticky.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: Help me understand how it works. What am I looking at? I see sort of a target and a circle and kind of.
[00:50:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that's so that you're. Yeah, that's. You're looking at a cup placement video probably. So we use accelerators and accelerometers and gyroscopes and basically what it does, Tom, is we do a Move to connect the anatomy to where the instrument and the system is. And once this move is done, it basically registers the anatomy so that every time the anatomy moves, the instrument set moves with it, as does the lantern unit. And so when they move together, they're always connected. Connected. And so we know exactly where the surgeon is in the anatomy. So we don't need imaging.
We are not telling the surgeon what to do. We are just precisely telling the surgeon where they are and what they're doing. So the video you're looking at is basically using, you know, a lantern unit and a reference sensor that are paired. Once they're paired, the surgeon then will take that reference sensor and put it on the impactor so that as they're positioning the cup, it's showing them exactly where the cup.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: Cup is.
So this is on throughout the entire surgery, the surgeon sort of using this?
[00:51:22] Speaker C: No, no, no, no, no. It's. It's. You know, hip and knee are a little bit different, but it's somewhere around two minutes of navigation.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:31] Speaker C: What's really nice about it, Tom, and I think where we're. Where we're thriving is, you know, it's the transition from those surgeons that are still using manual instrumentation to using some sort of technology. And I think the market is based now about 70% are still, 30% have moved to whether it's a robot, whether it's us, whether it's, you know, one of the other companies that are out there. So we still have. The mass market is still using manual. If you look at our setup, it combines manual instrumentation. And on top of the manual instrumentation puts an iPhone. So the surgeon can use their workflow no matter what they do. Femur first, tibia first on alignment. Whatever they want to do in the procedure, they can do it using our technology. And again, we are just giving them almost a backup camera in the sterile field field to tell them what to do, but not tell them what they're doing, but not what to do. Right. They decide what. Whether they want their cuts, Ferris Falgas, all the different things that go into it. We are just giving them the data to show that it's extremely accurate.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: Interesting.
So the theme sounds familiar, sounds familiar to Blue Belt. Whereas you were offering an option for folks, sort of a lower tech option for the rest of folks who weren't buying a mix. Mako. Where does Ortholine fit into this world where we. Mako's growing. We're seeing other handhelds come in. Corey's obviously still out there. Stryker has its own handheld now, there's a lot of different options for surgeons. Where does ortholine fit into all of that?
[00:53:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we fit very well. And I think for a couple reasons, as we talked about earlier, the transition from using manual instrumentation to using technology is moving pretty quickly. We think we're the easiest transition. The other piece of the puzzle is to move to the ASC setting. And I think our technology f very nicely into the asc. You know, technology in every room is the future. Right. So even if you have a robot in one room, you still, if you have two, three, four more rooms running patients through and surgeons through, you're going to want to have some sort of technology. And we fit very nicely. We're complementary to robots, or we can. We. Or we can be standalone. Right. We deliver very similar outcomes. We believe we're more efficient, clearly more cost effective.
We need shelf space, not a parking space. But all of that plays into kind of that technology, you know, in every room is the key to success for the surgeon, the patient, the administrator, and we're implant agnostic. So the other. Other thing that I think is, is really kind of fueling our success is, you know, you go to a facility that's got eight different guys using six different implants and finding a technology, because I want my Mako, I want my Rosa, I want my Cory, is really difficult. So we've become that, you know, kind of nice solution to make everybody happy, give the patients technology and be in a great position to cover all the implants that are put in. And I think that's going to continue. I mean, you're starting to see that. And then the other piece that you mentioned, and we think it's flattering, everybody is starting to try to figure out how to get smaller. And, you know, we've kind of set the tone and led that charge.
We don't think we're small enough, by the way. So we're going to continue to, you know, innovate and do things very differently. We also think that, you know, again, having imaging is something that's prohibitive and getting more prohibitive because reimbursements are not happening in certain areas for CT scans. So just making sure we keep it simple and efficient, but never get away from our accuracy that we deliver to our surgeons is key to our success.
[00:55:04] Speaker A: So you mentioned that you coexist with robots. Do you do so in the same room or just within the same facility? I guess I would say same.
[00:55:12] Speaker C: Yeah, same facility, not the same facility.
So if you have a robot going in one Room, we like to be the technology in the other two or three rooms. So when I say complimentary, you know, if a hospital has HSS is a great example, right. They have everybody's robot, but we're the number one technology used in these in HSS in New York. So. And it's because again, they have so many rooms running at the same time. Not everybody can get a robot. I think we have 26 surgeons using our technology.
[00:55:41] Speaker A: So what do you think of the long term plan or future looks like for Ortholine? Are you as, as the sale of robots, robotic systems go up, do yours have to go down? What does your future look like?
[00:55:53] Speaker C: No, no, no. I think it's exactly the opposite. I think that again, I think I go back to that same positioning that robots are not going away, but they haven't done what we expected them to do. And I'm very sincere in saying when I sat in my seat, we thought we'd be doing 50% of all knees within 5 of developing Navio, which is now Corey, right, Fast forward what, 15 years and it's about 18% of all knees are done robotically, maybe 20% at the high.
So, you know, it has not made the impact that we all expected it to make. I think there's a couple reasons for it and I am surely not knocking the technology because again, it was very good to me and my family and I think it's here to stay. But you know, cost prohibitive takes up a lot of stuff, space inefficient, implant specific, all of those things that were not. And I think that's why we continue to grow at a very fast pace.
And then what we've done recently is two things. One is we expanded our portfolio to bring in lantern hip. So 90% of our business has been 90 plus percent has been knees.
Now we have lantern with both direct anterior and posterior hip and it is taking off in a really, really strong fashion. Really excited about it. We just launched posterior lateral in January and already we're having inventory issues because it's performing so well. So that's a really positive step for us in the right direction, in the next direction. And then very soon we expect to launch lantern asc, which is specifically developed for the ASC space.
It will be a reusable lantern. So again, when we start thinking about cost effectiveness and what the asc, not surgeons, but administrators are looking for, it's all about accuracy and benefiting the surgeon and the patient, but also benefiting the P and L. And so what we like to say is if using our technology can add 1, 2, 3 more knees or hips to the day, that P and L looks a heck of a lot better and is not limited by technology being the reason you can't.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: How are the. You said reusable. How are the lanterns? What's their life now? Are they used once in a procedure?
[00:58:07] Speaker C: Procedure and then done one single, single use disposal? Yep. So our instruments are reusable and sterilizable, but the lantern as it sits today, the iPhone, single use and then thrown away.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Okay, so how does having a reusable one impact your.
I imagine having that current business for yours is great because you have to sell one for each procedure. If this is reusable, how do you sort of adjust for that?
[00:58:34] Speaker C: Yeah, so it's. It's going to be a little different of a. Of a sales process for us. What we'll deliver to the market is basically an iPhone that has a space for a smart pack. The SmartPak will be for each procedure. So each procedure we will have, you know, a consigned lantern ASC in the building, and then we'll sell packs of smart packs, whether it's a five pack, a ten pack. And so you choose to put a hip in or put a knee in, you pull that appropriate smart pack out, put it in the back of the lantern ASC and go to work. And so that's, that's how we're doing the reusable. So it's taking the cost out of, you know, a. An iPhone and giving us the ability to reuse it. Our expectation is probably 50 times before we replace it.
[00:59:19] Speaker A: And I kind of skipped over at the start how you came to to join Ortholine. Was this a company you were aware of? It had been around for a little bit before you joined as CEO.
[00:59:27] Speaker C: Yeah, so it had been around a while. I, I made the transition after we sold Blue Belt and was kind of exploring next opportunities, but was really not deep into it yet. Spending some time with my family doing some fun things. But I got a call to join the board of Orthline and I immediately said, why would I do that? I just sold this really cool, sexy technology.
Why would I go backwards and start looking at navigation? And two board members who are dear friends and really, really smart guys said, why don't you do your thing and do some research and see if robots are for the masses and see exactly what it's going to take to make that impact. And so I did. I made a bunch of calls and, you know, it Came back to me to say, robots are great, but I'm not going to use a robot, Eric. And, you know, you need something else. And so I said, okay, I'll dive in. I joined the board, and after, I think about three quarters, you know, it was one of those things where we thought we should be growing a little bit faster.
I still. Still wasn't doing anything, and, and so I was doing other boards, but. But it was, it was, it was eye opening as I was watching the business and looking at really who our target customers were. And the opportunity for the business went out and hired some really good people to run the sales organization for us and, and kind of dug in with them, trying to understand the market, and walked away as a board member saying, this is for the masses and should be for the masses. And next thing you know, I was convinced in a very positive way to jump in the chair. And it's been a great run. I mean, hard to believe, almost nine years here and we're not slowing down. I mean, we have a direct path now with what we're doing to, you know, what we talk about is not revenue volume, but procedural volume. Like I said, we'll do 70,000 cases this year. But just with HIP alone and Lantern ASC, getting to 100,000 procedures very, very quickly is in our near future just because of the volume that we see occurring on a daily basis and the growth we're achieving. So not in any hurry, not looking for anything other than to keep building the story. We're in a very strong financial position, so that helps.
And I think the bigger piece of the puzzle is I almost feel like with Lantern and now adding HIP and Lantern asc, we're just getting started. We're opening up ourselves to the international markets. We'll be CE Mark countries, which we've been out of for several years because of, you know, everything going on there.
So we'll be back in CE mark countries, you know, hopefully by the end of April. And, you know, that's another big growth opportunity. So like I said, not slowing down, just kind of warming up.
[01:02:13] Speaker A: What changed that brought you back to the CE mark companies?
[01:02:18] Speaker C: You know, all the regulatory changes that all these.
Yeah, yeah, so. So we navigated our way through it, and we're expecting our certificate any day.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: All right, great. Well, it's a great story. I always love people providing tech for the masses, so thank you for doing that and thanks, Eric, for joining us on the podcast.
[01:02:40] Speaker C: Tom, it's been a pleasure. Great to reconnect and appreciate you.
[01:02:46] Speaker A: All right. Well, that is a wrap. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Device Talks weekly podcast. I do hope you'll join us next week on our Surgical Robo series. Go to devicetalks.com to register. Also, would love to see you AT Device Talks Minnesota on May 4th. Go to minnesota.devicetalks.com Please subscribe to the Device Talks podcast network so you don't miss a future episode. And of course, follow us on LinkedIn.
You can follow Device Talks, you can follow Mass Device, you can follow me, Chris Newmarker, and of course Managing editor Kayleen Brown. We would all love to be part of of your future conversations. And I'm back on X. I'm at MedTech, Tom on X.
Someone convinced me to get back on X. So find me there if you're on X. We'd love to connect and see what's going on on X. So. All right, folks, that is a wrap. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Device Talks with.
