DVO plans national launch of wrist implants line
By Arundhati Parmar
The Journal GazetteWrist fractures might no longer be as incapacitating as they used to be if the products of one Warsaw-based orthopaedics company take off.
DVO (Deo Volente Orthpaedics) Extremity Solutions LLC is gearing up to launch two wrist implants nationally after receiving positive responses from surgeons nationwide.
Rod Mayer, president of DVO, said that small orthopaedics companies such as DVO Solutions can capitalize on niche opportunities in the market by responding quickly to the suggestions and ideas of surgeons. Currently, DVO is focusing on developing implants and related instrumentation for the finger tip to the shoulder region.
“We work very closely with surgeons who specialize in extremity implants,” Mayer said.
Mayer formerly was a business development director at DePuy Inc. and later an independent sales agent for a company that was acquired by Zimmer Holdings. That acquisition in late 2002 spurred Mayer to venture out on his own and launch DVO, which became operational in January 2004.
The two implants that DVO has developed use minimally invasive techniques to repair broken wrists unlike traditional methods, said Dr. Tony McPherron, an orthopaedic surgeon at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Plymouth, which is in northwest Indiana.
“I think (DVO) is going to revolutionize the way we treat broken wrists,” McPherron said. “The old way was to make a big incision and then put in a big plate and screws in there.”
McPherron has conducted six surgeries using DVO implants since late-May. The implants allow patients to return to their activities in two to three weeks rather than eight to 10 weeks, McPherron said, because the DVO products go through a small incision with minimal tissue damage. For the six surgeries that McPherron did, incisions were about 2 centimeters, compared with 2-inch incisions using the traditional method. He said many patients have been surprised at how quickly they have been able to use their injured wrists after surgery.
Mayer said one patient in Milwaukee felt well enough to lift boxes 10 days after surgery. That patient had only a heavy dressing and did not wear a cast after surgery, which is common when more invasive surgical methods are used, McPherron said.
Mayer and McPherron said surgeons who use DVO’s products “rarely” put patients in a cast.
DVO said that based on positive responses from surgeons across the country, it plans to unveil its products at the 2005 joint annual meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the American Society of Hand Therapists. The meeting will be Sept. 22-24 in San Antonio. About 2,800 surgeons, hand therapists, physician assistants and nurses are expected to attend.
Mayer said that after the company develops its complete portfolio in the extremities segment, DVO will compete with the Big Three in Warsaw – Biomet, DePuy and Zimmer.
Zimmer’s extremities segment has been growing, Brad Bishop, a company spokesman, said.
million in In the first half of the quarter, the segment raked in $34 revenue, a 14 percent increase from the first half of 2004. Zimmer makes implants for shoulders and elbows. Bishop declined to comment on DVO, citing the company’s policy regarding competitors.
DePuy, a company where the founding partners of DVO Solutions worked for most of the 1990s, declined to reveal how much the extremities segment accounts for overall business. Greg Perigo, a spokesman for DePuy, said that the company has “a full-line of trauma and extremity” products from the fingertip to the shoulder as well as for the foot and ankle regions. Perigo also declined to comment about DVO.
Dane Miller, president and CEO of Biomet, another orthopaedic heavyweight in Warsaw, said that his company estimates the 2005 orthopaedics total joint replacement market to be about $5.4 billion.
Total knee replacements comprise $3 billion followed by $2.2 billion in knee replacements. A distant third is shoulder replacement representing a $160 million market. That leaves only $40 million for all other orthopaedics implants including products for the wrist, he said.
“They are addressing a relatively small piece of the market,” Miller said of DVO. Biomet’s extremities business includes products for the wrist, shoulder and elbows.
Mayer said that the company was in no rush to put the products in the marketplace before they were confident of what they could achieve.
“I really respect (Biomet’s CEO) Dane Miller who believes in ‘making a few ” Mayer said. “We’ve walked before we’ve run.” and then selling a few,’
Now the company, which has five employees including Mayer, expects to ramp up its capability.
While manufacturing will be outsourced to a domestic supplier, DVO expects to hire five more people to grow to 10 employees in the next three to six months. It has already raised $6 million in capital this year from private individuals and currently occupies a new office space on 720 E. Winona Ave. in Warsaw. Mayer said the company expects to be cash-flow positive by 2008, although he declined to share revenue information.
McPherron, of St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, believes DVO is poised to do “great things” as it leverages the management team’s experience in the orthopaedics industry. In fact, the three founding partners – Mayer, and product development heads Don Running and Jeff Ondrla – all worked together at DePuy Inc.
McPherron added that because small companies such as DVO interact with a limited number of surgeons, they can react more quickly to their needs than larger orthopaedics companies who at any one time deal with more consultants.
Bishop of Zimmer said that the number of surgeon consultants in the design team varies by product and that he believes Zimmer’s “size and scope help to build relationships with the best surgeons in the field.”
DVO hopes to become a major player in the extremities market by developing products that will become popular among surgeons.“In seven years, if you ask a surgeon what companies come to mind in terms of responsiveness to surgeons needs in extremities implants, we want to be one of those companies,” Mayer said. “If we do that, the revenue and profits will come.”