With a new CEO at the helm for just more than a year and a new owner last September, officials at one of the area’s largest biotech firms are optimistic about the company’s future.
Biomet Inc., of Warsaw, an area that is a veritable hub for such firms, netted $603.1 million in sales for the quarter ending Feb. 29, selling scores of its replacement knees and hips. The company designs and manufactures products for the orthopedic, sports medicine, biologic, craniofacial and dental markets.
“Having been here 20 years, the company’s stronger than it’s ever been, and our prospects are outstanding,” said Bill Kolter, corporate vice president of government affairs and public affairs.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing in recent years for Biomet and its Warsaw-based rivals. Biomet, DePuy and Zimmer are all currently being monitored as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in New Jersey after it was revealed the companies paid hundreds of surgeons to hawk their products. The companies, including two others, paid $310 million in fines as part of the settlement and agreed to be monitored.
Recent months, though, have seen much in the way of positive change at the company, officials said.
In September, a subsidiary of LVB Acquisition acquired the company for $11.4 billion. The private equity group includes affiliates of Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Texas Pacific Group, along with a Biomet founder and former chief executive officer, Dane Miller.
The switch – from a publicly traded company to one privately owned – has been a noticeable transition, but a good one, Kolter said.
“The people who have bought us are some of the smartest business people in the world,” he said. “Having that level of expertise associated with our company is very exciting.”
And now, as a private company, Biomet is no longer subjected to the “whims of Wall Street” and is able to do what best reflects the company’s prospects, Kolter said.
Biomet recently completed a 30,000-square-foot expansion and renovation – the Orthopaedic Skills Academy – that includes an auditorium and a “cadaver lab,” where surgeons can practice and enhance their skills with Biomet products in an operating room-type setting, Kolter said.
According to industry data, the U.S. musculoskeletal products market totaled nearly $20.2 billion, with the biggest slice of that pie going to orthopedic reconstructive devices and spinal products. Knee and hip replacements are the largest parts of the orthopedic reconstructive-device market.
For Biomet, it is no different, with the company’s strongest product – the Vanguard Total Knee Replacement System introduced in 2004. The product has been a top seller since 2005, Kolter said.
With that, the company uses a patient-matched knee instrumentation in total knee replacement, Kolter said, which should improve the accuracy of implantation using MRI technology and should reduce the amount of sterilization, preparation and storage of instruments.
Demand for shoulder replacement and shoulder implants is growing, and Biomet’s new Comprehensive Primary Shoulder is designed to offer greater sizing flexibility, alignment precision and fixation options in total shoulder replacement, Kolter said.
New products being launched in the hip-replacement sector include the Regenerex Porous Titanium Construct, a new, fully porous titanium material used in the reconstruction of the hip socket. It is designed to provide rapid bone in-growth as well as strength and stability, according to Kolter.
A new type of polymer called E-Poly, designed in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital, is designed to offer lower wear in total hip replacement without giving up mechanical strength, Kolter said.
The company is particularly excited about its “biologics” work, Kolter said.
These products offer what Kolter described as “cellular-based solutions,” giving surgeons a way to concentrate and deliver things such as platelets and other naturally occurring healing factors in the body during the surgery.
“In doing this we’ve found … we can dramatically improve the patient healing,” he said.
The technique jump-starts the healing process and is widely applicable not just in orthopedics but in plastic surgery, cardio-thoracic surgery and other invasive surgical procedures, Kolter said.
“It has tremendous growth potential for us,” he said.
rgreen@jg.net
