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SmartTRAK Life Sciences News and Analysis Blog

3 min read

Medical Care for NFL Teams: Standards and Initiatives from AOSSM 2025

By David Shepard on 8/5/25 9:30 AM

James Voos, MD, chair of the Department of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Cleveland Browns team physician, and president of the NFL Physicians Society (NFLPS), shares his goals for the society and offers insight into how he is using biotechnology to monitor recovery, prevent further injuries, and safely return athletes to competition.

James Voos, MD, president of the NFL Physicians Society (NFLPS), discusses the society's efforts to standardize care for NFL players across the league in an interview with SmartTRAK at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) 2025 Annual Meeting recently held in Nashville, TN.

Dr. Voos also shares an update on ongoing clinical research for osteoarthritis treatment with stem cells. To listen to the interview, please click on the following video (4:18 minutes). A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is alsoprovided below. 

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Dave Shepard. I'm here at the AOSSM 2025. Keep watching for my interview with Dr. James Voos, who is the team physician for the Cleveland Browns, and also the president of the NFL Physicians’ Society. Dr. Voos, thanks for joining us.

James Voos, MD:
 Thank you very much for the invitation. I appreciate it.

Excellent. Tell me a little bit about the NFL PS and a little bit about what you're doing, what your initiatives are, what your goals are.

JV: 
As president of the NFL Physician Society, we represent all of the physicians that provide care for our professional athletes in football. That's not only our orthopedic surgeons, but our medical physicians and all of our associated consultants. So we help to provide standards for how to practice across the league, and that way we assure that every athlete and every team has ...

Interested in how biotechnology can be used to monitor recovery, prevent further injuries and safely return athletes to competition? Click
the button below to download the full transcript of SmartTRAK GM/Sr Analyst David Shepard's interview of James Voos, MD, president of the NFL Physicians Society (NFLPS) from AOSSM 2025. Get the Transcript

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2 min read

CMS Proposes Major Changes to Skin Substitutes Reimbursement: What You Need to Know

By Kris Flinn on 7/28/25 5:33 PM



SmartTRAK's industry experts discuss CMS’ proposed changes to skin substitutes reimbursement and their potential effects on wound care practices.

On Monday, July 14, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released new proposals for the reimbursement of Skin Substitutes in the physician fee schedule sites of care. SmartTRAK estimates the 2024 US Skin Substitutes Market at almost $8B, with over three-quarters of that amount coming from the Physician Office and Mobile+ sites of care.

In the following video, SmartTRAK Wound General Manager Kris Flinn is joined by Senior Analysts Jay Merkel and Elizabeth Anderson to explain the CMS proposals and explore their potential impacts on US wound care (17:33 min). To listen to the discussion, click the video below. A link to download a full transcript of the discussion is also provided below. 

 

SmartTRAK is pleased to announce the availability of its recent report, “Addressable Market Projection: Skin Substitutes,” which delivers in-depth data and forecasting for the rapidly evolving Advanced Wound Care (AWC) market. For info on how to access it, click the button below.Get the Analysis

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3 min read

New Vision for Orthopedic Robotics at ROCKS 2025

By Elise Wolf on 7/23/25 11:20 AM

Nicolas Piuzzi, MD, discusses the upcoming 2025 Robotic Orthopedic Concepts and Knowledge Symposium (ROCKS) in an interview with SmartTRAK.

Dr. Nicolas Piuzzi, enterprise vice chair of research for the Department of Orthopedics at the Cleveland Clinic and co-chair of the Robotic Orthopedic Concepts and Knowledge Symposium (ROCKS) spoke with SmartTRAK about the second annual ROCKS meeting being held in Cleveland, OH on August 15-16, 2025. In the following video, Dr. Piuzzi discusses the purpose behind this cutting-edge event in the field of arthroplasty robotics and his vision for the symposium going forward (9:43 min). A link to download a full transcript of the interview is also provided below. 



SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Elise Wolf, GM of Orthopedics and Enabling Technology at SmartTRAK. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Nicolas Piuzzi, who is the Enterprise Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Orthopedics at the Cleveland Clinic. He's an orthopedic surgeon and also co-chair of the Robotic Orthopedic Concepts and Knowledge Symposium, otherwise known as ROCKS. The second Annual ROCKS Symposium is coming up on August 15th and 16th at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Piuzzi, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Nicolas Piuzzi, MD:
 Thank you, Elise, for the opportunity and for your passion for the field, and happy to be here with you today.

As co-chair of the second annual ROCKS meeting, how do you see the meeting evolving from the inaugural meeting and what's your vision for this year, the second year of the meeting?

NP: Our vision for the second Annual ROCKS Symposium is to solidify on the success that we had on the first meeting and kind of setting the stage for the premier clinical robotic event in orthopedics. So we want this to be that event where innovation in the field of technology and robotics meets the real world application. So it's that environment where you can have both the engineers, the developers, be able to merge with the clinicians, and be able to see how to use this technology on clinical workflows with real data and in a true evidence-based adoption and pathway. And beyond just having a showcasing of technology, we want to ...

 Interested in the future of orthopedic robotics? We recently had this exclusive conversation with Dr. Nicolas Piuzzi, co-chair of the Robotic Orthopedic Concepts and Knowledge Symposium (ROCKS), to learn more about what to expect at this year’s event. Elise Wolf, SmartTRAK GM, Orthopedics & Enabling Technology, conducted the interview. Click the button below to download the full transcript and gain expert insights into what’s next for ROCKS.Get the Transcript

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3 min read

SNIS 2025: Spotlight on Q'Apel Medical

By Anne Staylor on 7/22/25 10:05 PM


Stewart Strong, Q’Apel Medical’s recently appointed CEO, discusses the company, his priorities and plans for growth in an interview with SmartTRAK at SNIS 2025 in Nashville, TN.

Stewart Strong, Q’Apel Medical’s recently appointed CEO, discusses the company, his priorities and plans for growth in an interview with SmartTRAK at the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery (SNIS) Annual Meeting held in Nashville, TN July 14-18, 2025. 

Strong says with recent challenges behind them, it’s the perfect time for him to join Q’Apel Medical. Given Q’Apel’s leadership position in balloon guide catheters, the full market launch of Zebra and the company’s pipeline leveraging its innovative laser-cut technology, he sees significant opportunity in the years ahead. To find out more, listen to the following video (21:12 min). A transcript of the interview is also provided below. 

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, everyone. Anne Staylor here with SmartTRAK. Today, I'm at the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery meeting in Nashville, and I have the pleasure of talking with Stewart Strong, the new president and CEO of Q'Apel Medical. Stewart, thanks for talking with me today.

Stewart Strong: Thanks, Anne. Great to be here.

So you are really new to the company. They just announced July 1st that you were in this new role. So I think a lot of people, myself included, want to hear a little bit about you. So do you want to start by just talking about yourself?

SS: Sure. And you're right, four weeks into the role, but I've been really excited about not only the opportunity here at Q'Apel, but also with the space that we're in and the growth of the neurovascular space. So to give you a little bit of background on me, I've been in the medical device industry for over 25 years. I've spent time in spaces like interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, and have really focused on areas where we can drive growth. That's one of the things I really enjoy is joining a company where we can drive exponential above-market growth and continue to add value to customers and to stakeholders through that growth.

I knew you're really experienced from what I had heard. So as you enter this new company, what are your priorities?

SS: I think what I saw in doing my own due diligence on Q'Apel is a company that has terrific innovation. When you think about innovation, you think about quality, you think about Q'Apel, and that's been validated here. I have had a chance to speak with a number of physicians that use our products. Everybody really looks at us as ...

Curious about where Q’Apel Medical is headed next? We sat down with CEO Stewart Strong for an exclusive interview conducted by Anne Staylor, SmartTRAK’s Executive Editor and VP & GM of Neuro Therapies. Click below to download the full transcript and get an inside look at Q’Apel’s future plans, innovations and strategic goals.Get the Transcript

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2 min read

Skin Substitutes Get WISeR – Will it Impact the Market?

By Jay Merkel on 7/22/25 10:44 AM

SmartTRAK reviews CMS’ new WISeR model and its potential impact on the US Skin Substitutes Market.

 A new initiative launched by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)’s Innovation Center, which develops payment and service delivery model pilot programs, could impact the Skin Substitutes Market in several states in 2026 and beyond. Other models to come out of the Innovation Center are: Comprehensive Care of Joint Replacement Model and the Maryland Total Cost of Care Model. The newest model, the WISeR Model, short for Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction, leverages AI technology along with human clinical review to streamline prior authorization processes for certain product categories.
 
The WISer Model hopes to use technology to root out wasteful services with limited clinical evidence of effectiveness. It targets many different product categories that CMS determined have a higher risk of waste, fraud and abuse. One such category is skin and tissue substitutes.
 

In this comprehensive article, SmartTRAK provides an overview of the WISeR Model and its potential market impact on skin substitutes.

Click the button below to download and read the complete article "Skin Substitutes Get WISeR – Will it Impact the Market?" by Jay Merkel, SmartTRAK Sr Analyst, Wound.Get the Article

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3 min read

2025 NASS Innovation NetWORK Summit

By Erin Dorgan on 7/15/25 9:30 AM

NASS Executive Director and CEO Eric Muehlbauer discusses NASS’s new Innovation NetWORK Summit in an interview with SmartTRAK. 

SmartTRAK Senior Analyst Erin Dorgan interviewed North American Spine Society (NASS) Executive Director and CEO Eric Muehlbauer, MJ, CAE, at the new NASS Innovation NetWORK Summit held June 20-21, 2025 in Chicago. The Innovation NetWORK Summit is a novel meeting where surgeons, engineers, medtech and other spine professional can network and collaborate about bringing innovative spine devices to market.

To find out more about this new meeting, click on the following video to listen to the interview (11:46 min). A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below.


Interview Transcript

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Erin Dorgan with SmartTRAK. Today I am talking with Eric Muehlbauer, CEO and executive director of the North American Spine Society. Eric, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. Can you share a little bit more about the meeting? Why is it important? And give some more details behind it.

Eric Muehlbauer: Thanks for having me on. We're very interested to see where this goes. NASS has always evolved as it needed to based on what's going on in the field. For a long time we were almost viewed as anti-industry with our ethics rules and things like that. What we've realized is that the field needs us to help stimulate innovation. There's lots of people who do innovation-type meetings or different tracks. We've got a particular reputation in the field, especially with payers, that might make this a little bit more interesting and get a little more traction. So I kind of call where we're at now, NASS 3.0, because we've had to evolve because of ...

Click the button below to download and read the complete transcript of SmartTRAK's interview with NASS Executive Director and CEO Eric Muehlbauer, conducted by Erin Dorgan, SmartTRAK Sr. Analyst, Spine & Bone Replacement.Get the Transcript

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2 min read

SmartTRAK at SNIS 2025

By Anne Staylor on 7/11/25 6:39 PM

SmartTRAK is excited to attend the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery’s (SNIS) 22nd Annual Meeting & Fellows Course in Nashville, Tennessee, from July 14-18, 2025. Anne Staylor, VP/GM of Neuro Therapies, will cover the latest news at the conference and provide updates on key studies, trends, and technologies affecting the market for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke devices. 

Meanwhile, click the image below to watch Anne’s video update on the US Market for Mechanical Thrombectomy in 2025.

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3 min read

Spinal Simplicity: Innovation in MIS Treatments Improving Patient Care

By Erin Dorgan on 7/11/25 11:00 AM

Spinal Simplicity’s Chief Strategy Officer Neil P. Dougherty shares how the company is advancing minimally invasive solutions to enhance patient outcomes.

Neil P. Dougherty, chief strategy officer of Spinal Simplicity, discusses the company’s position in the interventional spine and pain market, what the company looks forward to in the future and how it serves patients treated by spine surgeons and interventional pain management physicians.

Click on the following video (17:18 min) to learn more. A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below.

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Erin Dorgan with SmartTRAK. I'm here today with Neil Dougherty, chief strategy officer with Spinal Simplicity. Thanks for joining me today, Neil.

Neil P Dougherty: Glad to be here. Thanks, Erin.

You're welcome. Can you share a little bit more about what you do at Spinal Simplicity? I know, based upon your background, you've been in the interventional space for a while. How did you end up here at Spinal Simplicity?

NPD: Well, in a startup you wear a lot of hats. So I came to Spinal Simplicity first as a vice president of sales and then moved over to focus on just business development and more of an offensive role for our expansion. And as the company grew, an opportunity for promotion was there to get to my now title, chief strategy officer.

I have been in the interventional pain space for a long time. Gosh, it's about 15 years now. Started with Medtronic, doing spinal cord stimulators and intrathecal pumps--just over five years there. Then went over to Vertiflex in that startup campaign bought by Boston Scientific and only a year of integration there after that purchase.

And then how could you forget? When the whole world basically shut down during COVID, I was kind of losing my mind a little bit. I had a couple phone calls from some doctors and also Todd Moseley, the CEO of Spinal Simplicity, and founder. And I started learning more about Spinal Simplicity. I saw their main product, Minuteman. I was like, ‘This is where I need to be.’

Okay. So speaking of Minuteman, and obviously with your background, Boston Scientific recently discontinued Vertiflex Superion. Do you think that is an opportunity for Spinal Simplicity and Minuteman to explore those customers? Or how would you describe that?

NPD: I think so. I'd like to describe it as just an acceleration to where most of those customers were probably going to graduate anyway. Superion was a great idea. I mean, it wasn't even a Vertiflex idea. This is, indirect decompression has been a great studied spine idea for a long time and it certainly wasn't the first ISP out there, but the aim is ...

Click the button below to download and read the complete transcript of SmartTRAK's interview with Neil P. Dougherty, CSO of Spinal Simplicity conducted by Erin Dorgan, SmartTRAK Sr Analyst, Spine & Bone Replacement.Get the Transcript

Topics: Spine
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2 min read

BA Summit and AANA Join Forces to Share Orthobiologic Insights

By David Shepard on 7/8/25 9:30 AM

SmartTRAK provides insights into the latest trends, research and consensus opinions in surgical Orthobiologic treatments and non-operative regenerative medicine from this year’s BA Summit and AANA meetings.

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2 min read

Deals in Advanced Wound Care

By Susan Paquette on 7/1/25 9:30 AM

Nearly half a billion in US dollars has been invested in Advanced Wound Care over the last 18 months. Learn where the money is going.

Over the past three years the global Advanced Wound Care Market has almost doubled, an exciting market for investment according to SmartTRAK estimates. The biggest deal in Advanced Wound Care (AWC) has been Coloplast's acquisition of Kerecis in 2023. Kerecis, a startup in the US Skin Substitute Market, demonstrated strong growth and the potential to have a global presence, justifying the high price. Startups have been a key component of the market, with new technologies and products over the years, and have been advancing their portfolios through IPOs, strategic partnerships, and investments. 

This downloadable article reviews the recent top deals and investment trends in AWC, including:

  • Recent Global Wound Care Investments
    • Top Deals and Investments Jan 2024 through June 2025
  • Market Trends
    • Although the US Skin Substitute/ CAMPs Market has seen exponential growth in the last few years, that isn't where global investment is occurring.
  • Investment by Geography
    • US and Canada Wound Care Investments
    • UK, Europe, and Rest of World (ROW)
  • Early-Stage Investments
    • Non-Dilutive Funding Sources
    • Strategic and Insurance Provider Investments

Want to know which deals are shaping the future of wound care? Click below to download the full article, “Deals in Advanced Wound Care,” co-authored by Dr. Mitchell C. Sanders, CEO, ProDevLabs and Susan Paquette, SmartTRAK Senior Advisor, Wound, to get a firsthand look at the key investment trends driving this dynamic market.

Get the Article

Topics: Wound Care
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