The Winter Park company is working to revolutionize the repair of hand, shoulder and Achilles tendons with its Teno Fix technology -- a system that uses a mechanical instrument to repair a tear with corkscrew-shaped anchors and stainless steel sutures that are clamped in place with metal beads. The sutures and anchors allow the patient to put pressure on the injury almost immediately without pulling the sutures out. With traditional polypropylene or nylon sutures, there is a 30% reinjury rate for tendons in the hand and fingers and 9% to 37% reinjury rate for the Achilles tendon, according to Ortheon.
Founded in 2000, Ortheon is the brainchild of entrepreneur Bill Christy, who has helped launch four medical startups over the past decade. The technology, however, is licensed from Columbus, Ohio, surgeon Lawrence Lubbers, who with his team came up with the basic concept in the early 1990s.
Initially, the company focused on hand surgeries. Christy, who has a background in business rather than medical education, says that in the U.S. alone, there are 25 major hand centers that perform 80,000 flexor tendon finger surgeries each year.
In June, Ortheon began shipping its first medical products to a distributor in South Africa, where the company had previously conducted trials in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Christy says the company soon will begin shipping its products to Europe and hopes to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by early 2003 for their use in the U.S. The company projects modest revenues of $678,000 this year, but a dramatic increase to $7.9 million in 2003. Of the FDA approval process, Christy says, "I don't expect a lot of surprises." But he adds, "Clearly, questions are anticipated."
Teno Fix will be sold to hospitals for $1,000 each. Christy concedes that price is about $950 more than traditional sutures, but he argues that it is cost-effective when the shorter recovery time and the decrease in reinjury rates are considered.
To fund the company's growth, Christy has raised $9.6 million from private investors, including Christy himself and his father. From the start, Christy's business strategy has been to develop the technology, put together a sales strategy and then shop the company around to a bigger medical products company. "This company was set up to be acquired and be part of another company," says Christy, who in the early 1990s helped launch a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that makes minimally invasive medical instruments.
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