March 2021 — News and updates from the medical technology community.

Leadership

Cretex Companies , has announced the retirement of CFO Steve Ragaller. Scott Lunger, who joined the company in January, will succeed Ragaller. The two have been working closely to ensure a smooth transition.

“Throughout the recruiting process, cultural fit with our company, executive team, family shareholders and Board of Directors was a top priority. We could not be happier to have Scott join Cretex,” Wollerman added. Lunger joined Cretex from Pentair, where he served as the VP of Finance of their Consumer Solutions Group. His prior experience includes CFO roles with public and private companies including Ergotron, Nilfisk-Advance, and Electrolux. Lunger brings a strong manufacturing background and versatile skillset to the Cretex team with an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor of Science with a focus in Operations and Finance from Indiana University.

Innovations in Optics, Inc. (IOI) has hired laser industry veteran David Clark as vice president of sales & marketing. Clark will report directly to the CEO, Thomas Brukilacchio. He brings over 30 years of executive level experience in sales and marketing of photonics, optics, and laser-based products into micro-electronics, medical, bioinstrumentation, aerospace, and industrial materials processing markets.

NewAge Industries , maker of plastic and silicone tubing, announces the promotions of Lawrence Morano and Sean Lynch. Morano fills a new role, that of Executive Director of Sales, Marketing and Product Development, and Lynch is now Director of Product Development. NewAge and its brands – AdvantaPure®, BrewSavor® and Verigenics® – serve a variety of industries, most notably biopharm, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, industrial and medical device.

Morano began with NewAge over six years ago as a regional sales manager for the company’s high purity AdvantaPure products. His education, background and sales experience involving bioprocess products and single-use fluid transfer systems helped grow the AdvantaPure line, particularly in the eastern part of the United States where many biopharm and pharmaceutical companies are based.<p>

Bexson Biomedical, Inc. , a research-stage company developing dosing and delivery solutions for mental health and pain management indications, announced today the addition of medical device and combination product developer, Sheldon Moberg, to its senior leadership team. As Senior VP, Drug Delivery, Moberg will lead the development of Bexson’s drug delivery technologies, starting with a wearable infusion device for its BB106 therapy, in partnership with Italian drug containment solution and medical device manufacturer, Stevanato Group.

ExplORer Surgical has expanded its clinical advisory board with the addition of Dr. Vasili Karas, MD, MS, an orthopedic surgeon at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush. ExplORer’s platform, designed for medical device companies, is cloud-based and device agnostic, making it easily accessible on existing hardware in the OR, including mobile devices, desktop monitors, and TV screens. In addition to customized content for each team member in the OR, the platform collects data, allows staff to record timestamps and save annotated images, and assists in creating actionable insights to improve inefficiencies.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

Omega Healthcare , a provider of outsourced revenue cycle management and other healthcare support services, has acquired himagine Solutions, a St. Louis-based provider of medical coding and registry services. The transaction expands the service capabilities and geographical footprint of both companies, enhancing the ability to service clients globally.

Through this acquisition Omega Healthcare will be able to expand both its global delivery model and its clinical services portfolio. himagine’s U.S. delivery capabilities strengthen Omega’s ability to support clients with a more integrated end to end solution. Omega also gains himagine’s expertise in clinical documentation improvement (CDI), coding audits, and chart abstraction for medical registries including the U.S. cancer and trauma registries.

Glooko Inc. , a leading provider of remote patient monitoring and chronic care management solutions including diabetes and obesity has raised a $30 million Series D round of funding. The financing was led by Health Catalyst Capital along with participation from existing investors Canaan Partners, Georgian, Novo Nordisk, Insulet and Mayo Clinic. Proceeds will be used to accelerate organic growth and strategic initiatives across the company’s broad and growing product line of advanced digital health solutions.

Piezo Motion Corp.  has acquired Discovery Technology International, Inc., an innovator of standing wave-type piezo technology for rotary and linear motion products. With the acquisition, Piezo Motion released a full product line of precision energy-efficient piezo motors that now makes the technology affordable for a wide range of motion control applications, at scale, in an expanding number of industries.

Royal Philips , a global leader in health technology, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), whose mission is to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health, and MedAxiom, an ACC company with the same mission, have announced a collaboration to deliver timely and actionable information along with guidance to align physicians, operations and finance stakeholders. The goal of the collaboration is to drive significant performance improvements in integrated cardiovascular care in terms of the patient and care provider experience, clinical outcomes and productivity.

The LoRa Alliance® , the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN® standard for Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), and GS1 in Europe, a not-for-profit organization that develops and maintains global standards for business communication to improve the efficiency, safety and visibility of the supply chain in a variety of sectors, today announced a formal liaison agreement to explore adding LoRaWAN networks as an available carrier technology to the GS1 standards. The organizations’ goals are to provide greater efficiency and interoperability for supply chain and maintenance operations, strengthen inventory management, and simplify data exchanges between different systems and stakeholders. The initial collaboration addresses the requirements of the railway industry, with other sectors to follow.

Expansions

Zasti, Inc. , an artificial intelligence (AI) technology company that develops innovative risk screening, predictive analytics, and climate change solutions for the healthcare industry, will invest $5.9 million to establish its U.S. headquarters and operations in Loudoun County. The company will utilize the facility to develop and embed ZASTI© AI platforms in diagnostic devices and enterprise IT systems to ensure product quality, supply chain security, and affordability. Virginia successfully competed with Maryland for the project, which will create 60 new jobs.

NewAge Industries , maker of high purity AdvantaPure® products, recently increased storage space for the plastic, silicone, and TPE tubing its team members manufacture. The company has been stocking more inventory to help meet demand for fluid and air transfer products used in the battle against COVID-19 and other applications. The warehouse space, previously leased to a tenant, is within its headquarters in Southampton, PA, and now houses bulk tubing inventory. Plans involve shifting inventory of other products to allow room for additional cleanroom manufacturing areas. Due to its growth, NewAge now utilizes the entire building, which was purchased 20 years ago.

Certifications

BrainTale , a French company specializing in the development of software as a medical device for the quantitative measurement of the brain microstructure and the prognostication of the recovery outcome has received ISO 13485 :2016 certification and the CE marking of its first product, brainQuant. The company received ISO 13485:2016 certification, an international standard governing the requirements of a quality management system for medical devices and related company services. The CE marking - Conformite Europeenne - certifies that the product meets European Union (EU) requirements for marketing in Europe.

Marketplace

MicroPort Orthopedics has officially launched its Kinematic Alignment (KA) approach for the Evolution® Medial-Pivot Knee System. This approach, which has been in use by a limited amount of surgeons in order to best develop and tweak, is now available for use by all orthopedic surgeons utilizing the Evolution Medial-Pivot Knee System.

The KA technique is designed to replicate the natural alignment of a patient’s pre-disease knee joint. Utilizing specialized instrumentation, a surgeon is able to make Bone cuts based on each individual patient’s pre-diseased state, which can reduce the need to alter the patient’s soft tissue structures like ligaments, potentially resulting in a more minimally invasive approach. This approach combines an innovative surgical approach with the established clinical results of the MicroPort Medial-Pivot knee system in an effort to improve patient satisfaction and outcomes.