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SmartTRAK Life Sciences News and Analysis Blog

3 min read

AANA 2025: Spotlight On OSSIO

By Andy Knapik on 6/10/25 9:45 AM

SmartTRAK spotlights OSSIO in an interview at AANA 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Bryan Jones, vice president of marketing and medical education at OSSIO, discusses the company’s novel bio-integrative OSSIOfiber implants in an interview with SmartTRAK at the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) 2025 Meeting in Washington DC. 

Watch the following video to learn more about OSSIO and its novel technology. (17:50 min.) A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below. 

 

Hey everybody, it's Andy Knapik, senior analyst with SmartTRAK covering sports medicine arthroscopy. I'm here at the AANA meeting in Washington, DC, and right now I'm joined by Bryan Jones, an old friend of mine who is now what, VP of marketing, right?

Bryan Jones: Yes.

For OSSIO. And OSSIO is really this great up-and-coming company. We've profiled them in the past, and I think their products are really incredible and the things that they're doing are really amazing. When you first joined OSSIO you came to me and said ‘Hey, you need to come check this out. This stuff's really cool.’ So I went and looked at it and the first thing I see is these kind of bioabsorbable pins, which 25 years ago I started my career by selling Bionix, which is absorbable pins and screws and stuff. Back then you could bend the pins. They were never all that sturdy. So, when you first talked to me about this I was a little dubious, and then I put my hands on one and you couldn't bend it, couldn't bend it at all. And I thought ‘Well, that's really interesting.’ And then you guys came out with a compression staple, which is completely amazing.

BJ: Yeah, right.

The only one on the market, right?

BJ: Only one in the world. Yes, the only non-permanent compression staple ever.

So talk to me about just about OSSIO, about the product. What makes OSSIO products as good as they are?

BJ: Yes. I'll touch on where you started when you said you and I first met probably what, six years ago now? And your initial reaction is probably like 10,000 other reactions that we got back then. The hardest thing we ever had to do was convince people that this was not a typical biocomposite or bioabsorbable implant. That was the hardest hurdle. To do that, we had to really tell them about ...

Click the button below to download and read the complete transcript of SmartTRAK's interview with Bryan Jones, Ossio's VP of Marketing & Medical Education, conducted by  Andy Knapik, SmartTRAK Senior Analyst, Soft Tissue Fixation and Arthroscopic Enabling Technologies.Get the Transcript

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3 min read

Is Nitric Oxide the Next Big Thing in Wound Care?

By Susan Paquette on 6/9/25 9:56 AM

Nitric Oxide (NO) has numerous benefits for wound healing but has challenges associated with its delivery. Several companies are addressing those challenges and creating an exciting opportunity in wound care.

Nitric oxide (NO) was named “Molecule of the Year” by the journal Science in 1992, and six years later, three US scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for their efforts to prove that NO, an endogenous gas and free radical, could have crucial biological effects. One of the well-known medical uses of NO is via nitroglycerin, a precursor to NO, to prevent and treat chest pain (angina). It works by relaxing blood vessels, which decreases the amount of work the heart has to do. NO has been identified for its value in chronic wound healing for many years because of its function in vasodilation, relaxing blood vessels and increasing blood flow, as well as its broad-spectrum antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity.

No products have yet reached the market for chronic wounds; however, SmartTRAK has noted increasing activity related to the benefits of NO for wound healing. In fact, an article was published earlier this year entitled “Emerging Strategies for Nitric Oxide Production and Their Topical Application as Nano Dressings to Promote Diabetic Wound Healing.” The article identified four primary modes in which NO benefits the diabetic wound healing process: providing antimicrobial properties, promoting angiogenesis, regulating inflammation and promoting tissue regeneration and remodeling.

This market outlook article will discuss in detail the following subjects:

Topics: Wound Care
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3 min read

AANA 2025: Spotlight On Pristine Surgical

By Andy Knapik on 6/5/25 10:07 AM

SmartTRAK spotlights Pristine Surgical in an interview at AANA 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Bryan Lord, CEO of Pristine Surgical, discussed the company’s Summit 4K, single-use arthroscopic camera in an interview with SmartTRAK at the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) 2025 Meeting in Washington, D.C 

Watch the following video to learn more about Pristine Surgical and its novel technology. (21:27 min.) A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below. 

 

Hey, everybody, it's Andy Knapik, Senior Analyst for SmartTRAK for all things sports medicine and arthroscopy. I'm here at the AANA meeting in Washington, D.C. We're at the Pristine Surgical booth. I'm joined by Bryan Lord, CEO of Pristine Surgical, and here just to talk about what they have going on. They have a single-use arthroscopic camera.

Bryan, I've known you now for probably a few years, we've talked about this quite a bit. When we look in the video capital world, we see a lot of different things going on right now. We have traditional capital systems like the Strykers, and Smith+Nephews, Arthrexes of the world, with a full tower. We have some wireless options out there now that are pretty intriguing. And then we have some single-use options. Arthrex has a nanoscope and then you guys have yours as well.

So, talk about how this got started, what benefits you initially saw, and how is that progressing now.

BL: Yes, so the genesis of the scope that we see here today actually was in a rather niche application. Some docs said, ‘Look, we think we could do some things different in visualization.’ And they were looking for ways to do some different angular types of views, 30, 70, in more of a pannable configuration. The early days of the development we did in partnership with a group called DECA Research in Manchester, New Hampshire, led by the noted medtech developer and entrepreneur engineer, Dean Kamen. In the conversation with those doctors and Dean, the concept came up (Dean's idea) to say, ‘Look, we think that we could do this single use. Would that be interesting?’

At that time, it was still early in the ways that people were understanding the proliferation of digital technologies, but everybody knew, including Dean, who's always been in the forefront, this was really a big idea. How could we take today's burgeoning areas of digital photography and bring that into the surgical suite? And it was early on that we knew that it was ...

Click the button below to download and read the complete transcript of SmartTRAK's interview with Bryan Lord, CEO of Pristine Surgical, conducted by  Andy Knapik, SmartTRAK Senior Analyst, Soft Tissue Fixation and Arthroscopic Enabling Technologies.Get the Transcript

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3 min read

Aatru Medical: Next-Gen NPWT for Surgical Incisions

By David Shepard on 6/3/25 9:30 AM

Thomas Lash, COO and co-founder of Aatru Medical, talks about the company’s innovative single-use negative pressure device, NP-Sims, a Negative Pressure Surgical Incision Management System.

Thomas Lash, chief operating officer and co-founder of Aatru Medical elaborates on the company’s strategy to mitigate the risk of surgical site infections through NP-SIMS, their single-use negative pressure surgical incision management system. To listen to the interview, please click on the following video (21:21 minutes). A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is provided below. 

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is David Shepard, senior analyst with SmartTRAK. Today it's my pleasure to be joined by Tom Lash, COO and co-founder of Aatru. He's going to talk to us today about a product that he co-invented, called NPSims. Tom, tell us a little about your company and about the product.

Tom Lash: We started the business about eight years ago, a small research and commercialization team with the goal of developing an alternative solution for the single-use, disposable negative pressure wound therapy market.  Kind of a mouthful to say that, but in essence, what we were trying to do is looking at the predicate devices that are on the market, we knew that if we were going to try and have a product that could make an impact on that market segment, it would be necessary for us to find an innovative mode of action to create the negative pressure without the current use of electromechanical pump which powers the leading products that are in use today. They have an electromechanical pump. They're battery-operated. They have software. Those products were primarily devised for the open or chronic wound market, and because of our focus on the surgical incision market, we were able to design something that was different. We believe the current products are probably over-engineered for the surgical incision market. So, our approach was to devise ...

Click the button below to download and read the complete transcript of SmartTRAK's interview with  Aatru Medical's Co-Founder and COO Thomas Lash, conducted by  David Shepard, SmartTRAK Lead Analyst, Orthobio & Regen.Get the Transcript

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2 min read

AANA 2025: Spotlight on ZuriMED

By Emily Meng on 5/30/25 10:01 AM

Tom Borg discusses ZuriMED and its new FDA-cleared product, FiberLocker, in an interview with SmartTRAK at AANA in Washington, DC.

ZuriMED Technologies’ Tom Borg discusses the company and its recently FDA-cleared product, FiberLocker, in an interview with SmartTRAK at the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) Annual Meeting, held May 8-10, 2025, in Washington, DC. 

To find out more about the company and its novel FiberLocker System, a combination product comprised of SpeedPatch, a synthetic, non-woven polyethylene terephthalate (PET) patch and FiberLocker Instrument, which delivers and fixates the patch onto the repaired tendon, listen to the following video (4:13 min). A link to download a transcript of the interview is also provided below. 

 

SmartTRAK: Hi. This is Emily Meng with SmartTRAK, and I’m here with Tom from ZuriMED. Hi, Tom.

Tom Borg: Good morning, Emily.

Tom, why don’t you tell us about FiberLock System and how you differentiate it from your competitors.

TB: So, FiberLocker is unique in that it focuses on the mechanical component of what is typically the reason rotator cuff repairs fail. They fail usually at the suture tendon interface. And so there has been a lot of effort over the past 10 to 20 years in trying to augment the integrity of the rotator cuff with biologics and different suturing configurations. But the unfortunate truth is, the quality and consistency of the tendon still remains quite poor and compromised. So ZuriMED, with the help of some very talented engineers and a brilliant surgeon idea, developed a...

Click the button below to download the complete transcript of our interview with Zurimed's Tom Borg at AANA 2025, conducted by SmartTRAK's Emily Meng, Get the Transcript
Topics: Arthroscopy
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4 min read

Spotlight on VISIE: AAOS 2025 OrthoPitch Winner

By Elise Wolf on 5/27/25 9:30 AM

VISIE CEO Doug Fairbanks discusses the company’s 3D scanning technologies and its vision for the future of enabling technology in orthopedics in an interview with SmartTRAK.

At this year’s American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Annual Meeting in San Diego, orthopedic startups were in the spotlight in the second annual OrthoPitch event, a Shark Tank-like competition sponsored, in part, by SmartTRAK. Medtech startup VISIE rose to the top to win the event out of forty applicants. VISIE’s optical scanning technology uses white and infrared light, provides non-invasive ‘snap’ registration in under a second, and can be used with or without CT to drive surgical robotic arm positioning without tracking arrays. Doug Fairbanks, CEO of VISIE, discussed the company and its goal to introduce pinless tracking for orthopedic procedures in a recent interview with SmartTRAK.

To find out more, listen to the following video (18:18 min). Below is a link to download the complete transcript of the interview. 

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Elise Wolf, VP and GM of Orthopedics and Enabling Technology at SmartTRAK. Today, I'm speaking with Doug Fairbanks, CEO of VISIE. Welcome, Doug. And I want to start out by congratulating you and the entire VISIE team for winning this year's AAOS OrthoPitch event.

Doug Fairbanks: Hi. Thank you, Elise. Thank you for having me. And we're all excited.

It's no small feat. I think it was 40 applicants vying for a spot to pitch their company and technology at the finals. And then you were up against three other companies in the finals, 16 BIT, Auctus Surgical and SentryX to be crowned this year's winner. I'm really excited to share with our subscribers a little bit more about VISIE and your vision for the company. So why don't you give a little background about yourself and about the company?

DF: Thank you. First of all, that was a really remarkable competition for us, and the competition was really stiff, right? We talked to a lot of folks in a lot of places, and it's rare that we run up against competition that I think is so profound and so talented, and delivers so much value for patients in the future. So we were very pleased to be the top on that day and we're excited for the recognition of the company. My name's Doug Fairbanks. I'm the president and CEO of VISIE, formerly Advanced Scanners. I've been in orthopedics for about 15 years. I spent the entirety of my career kind of at the intersection of technology, the OR and commercialization.

I've had the pleasure of working in a lot of different roles with a bunch of different companies. Zimmer, DePuy, I worked at Brainlab in the orthopedics unit for a while, and was really close to how technology integrates with patients. And I'm excited that when I saw what Advanced Scanners was doing at the time, I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned to my wife and I said, ‘I have to go there. I have to go work at that company. That is something special. That is something that's going to change the world.’ And here I am a little over two and a half years later and the company is doing remarkable things. I feel bad that I get to stand in front of everybody and take credit and say we're great. But there's a bunch of really remarkable, very intelligent people who work in the office here, who show up every day and push to the very edge of what is scientifically possible for the benefit of patients and surgeons.

I love it. I think what you're doing is really a paradigm shift in the enabling technology space. So could you describe a little bit about what is the technology with the 3D scanners and what really you're aiming to do, and how you're looking to change the landscape?

DF: When I think about the challenges of the OR, we really have to think as a startup, are we locked onto a problem? Do we see that there's an opportunity to do better? And years ago, I asked myself, ‘Hey, are computers and technology going to be more or less part of our lives going forward?’

I think surgeons are asking themselves the same question, ‘How do I use the benefits or utilize all that computing has to offer, while still integrating into my practice and treating patients in the only way that surgeons can do?’

So when we looked at the problem of robotics, navigation and AR-VR, we realized that ...

Click the button below to download the complete transcript of our interview with Visie President and CEO Douglas Fairbanks conducted by Elise Wolf, GM & VP, SmartTRAK Orthopedics & Quality.Get the Transcript
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3 min read

NASS Biologic Interventions 2025: Spotlight on Allumin8

By Erin Dorgan on 5/20/25 9:30 AM

Allumin8 CEO Alyssa Huffman discusses the company's novel therapeutic hardware during an interview with SmartTRAK at the 2025 NASS Biologic Interventions.

Alyssa Huffman, CEO of Allumin8, discussed the company and its efforts to create a new product category of therapeutic hardware in an interview with SmartTRAK on May 9, 2025, at the 2025 North American Spine Society (NASS) Biologics Interventions meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The company is focused on treating over 200 unique bone disorders and diseases, and its first product is focused on the Spinal Hardware Market.

Click on the following video (8:49 min) to learn more. A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below.

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Erin Dorgan, senior analyst here at SmartTRAK. I'm here today with Alyssa Huffman, CEO of ALLUMIN8. Alyssa, thank you for joining me today. Can you share a little bit more about your background and your role at ALLUMIN8?

Alyssa Huffman: Absolutely, Erin. Thanks for being here. I started in the clinic, then worked in the OR, went into sales, distribution. I worked my way into an executive function and then decided I was going to bet on myself. I have 30 years of experience throughout orthopedic spine biologics regenerative therapies.

That's awesome.

AH: And computer navigation.

Well, that's quite extensive. So we're here today at the NASS Biologic Interventions for Spinal Pathologies meeting. Why are you here with ALLUMIN8? What's the purpose for ALLUMIN8 presenting?

AH: Dr. Zorica Buser, she asked me to come and talk to the researchers and physicians about how to design a product that will actually commercialize and can get funded. There's a very different issue that's going on right now where products that only are a little bit, 1% to 3%, better than what's currently available on the market. There's a plethora of those, and so we have ...

Click the button below to download the complete transcript of our interview with Allumin8 CEO Alyssa Huffman, conducted by Erin Dorgan, SmartTRAK Senior Analyst.Get the Transcript
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3 min read

ISASS 2025: Spotlight on Surgical Theater

By Elise Wolf on 5/13/25 9:30 AM

SmartTRAK highlights Surgical Theater and its novel 3D visualization technology at ISASS 2025.

Dennis Roy, director of product management at Surgical Theater, discusses the company and its novel 3D visualization technology in an interview with SmartTRAK at the International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS) 2025 Annual Conference in Miami, Florida, April 10-12, 2025. The technology merges multiple imaging modalities into a patient-specific model that surgeons can leverage across the entire patient continuum of care. The comprehensive “eXperiential Reality” (XR) environment includes augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality and artificial intelligence.

Click on the following video to find out more (2:45 min). A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below. 

Interview

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Elise Wolf at SmartTRAK. Today I am with Dennis Roy, director of product management at Surgical Theater. We're here at the ISASS meeting.

Dennis Roy: Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Dennis. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about Surgical Theater and your technology?

DR: So, Surgical Theater is a 3D visualization company. We specialize in taking multiple modalities and merging them into a patient-specific model. So, the idea is that overall we are able to design, we're able to display and deliver a full, comprehensive solution that the surgeon is able to take across the patient care continuum. So, from engagement with the patient themselves, building a surgical plan and then being able to bring that plan into the operating room.

And what kind of imaging do you use to create your models?

DR: So, with ours we can actually incorporate CTs and MRIs as well as ...

Want to know more about Surgical Theater and its novel 3D visualization technology? Click the button below to download the complete transcript of our interview with Dennis Roy, Director of Product Mgmt, Surgical Theater, Inc., conducted by Elise Wolf, GM & VP, SmartTRAK Orthopedics & Quality. Get the Transcript

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3 min read

CytexOrtho: Regenerative Medicine Solutions for Osteoarthritis

By Emily Meng on 5/6/25 10:17 AM

SmartTRAK spotlights CytexOrtho, the AAOS 2024 OrthoPitch winner, as it develops its biodegradable implant to address early joint degeneration. 

In this interview with SmartTRAK, CytexOrtho CEO Brad Estes, PhD, discusses the company’s cartilage repair implant, ReNewHip, an engineered bicomponent implant used for cartilage regeneration.

To find out more about CytexOrtho and its technology, click the image below to watch the video (26:37 min). A link to download a transcript of the interview is also provided below.

 

SmartTRAK: Hi, this is Emily Meng with SmartTrak. Today I'm here with CytexOrtho CEO Brad Estes. Thanks, Brad, for joining me today.

Bradley Estes: Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

So, we'll just jump in and start asking you some questions. Let’s start with can you tell me about yourself and your background and how you got started with CytexOrtho.

BE: Yeah, it was kind of a circuitous route to get here. I started my career in the Medtech industry with Sofamor Danek, which was eventually acquired by Medtronic, and kind of did a lot of R&D in the heyday of spine, I like to say it, and was even on the team that did BMP-2. So that was a lot of fun seeing the role of a biologic in orthopedics and what that could really do to change the way patients are treated. And so I spent about eight years in Medtronic and then I left industry, came to academia, did a PhD at Duke and kind of retooled and learned the molecular biology, the stem cell biology, the tissue engineering and just kind of gained a whole new skill set. I got to work with some really great people and that kind of set us off on our journey of where we are today and kind of tie in some product development experience with science and having the right time and the right people and the right funding to push forward with CytexOrtho. And I'm sure I caused more questions in that response than answered, but I'm happy to fill in the gaps, too.

Can you tell us a little bit about CytexOrtho and what you guys are doing, and specifically, I guess, for ReNew Hip, since that's your product that is under development.

BE: So, our goal from the beginning has been to treat that patient that currently has no solutions. I'm talking the patient in their 30s, 40s or 50s that have early-stage hip disease, but they have no solutions right now. Their plight is kind of sad if you think about it. They go see their doctor, they have some hip pain, they're starting to not be able to do the things they want to do. And so, they take some ibuprofen, do some PT, and let's come back and see me in a year and that progresses for about seven or eight years typically. That's what our data tells us. That patient is just living with more chronic pain and increasing disability over that eight years until finally they can't take it anymore and then they replace their hip. And so, our technology is ...

Click the button below to download the complete transcript of our interview with Brad Estes, CEO of CytexOrtho, conducted by  SmartTRAK analyst Emily Meng.Download the Transcript
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2 min read

Trends to Watch in 2025: Interventional Technologies Disrupting the Treatment of CLBP

By Kris Jacques on 4/29/25 9:30 AM

SmartTRAK discusses the latest technologies disrupting the standard of care for chronic low back pain (CLBP)

Non-surgical and less invasive treatment options for CLBP continue to evolve, closing the gap between conservative management and surgical intervention. SmartTRAK estimates that over 450K surgical procedures were performed for low back pain in the US in 2024. However, the number of patients suffering from CLBP is far more significant, and we estimate that over 11 million patients can be treated with new, non-surgical and less invasive technologies.

The treatment approach for spinal back pain starts with conservative measures and progresses to more invasive treatments, depending on the severity and nature of the pain. Treating patients earlier in the cascade can delay the progression and reduce the need for more costly care.
 
In this downloadable article, SmartTRAK discusses the companies and technologies advancing earlier intervention with the potential for disrupting the standard of care cascade, including non-surgical Intradiscal therapeutics and MIS restorative therapies. The article also covers the ongoing shift from spine surgeons to interventionists and the increasingly prominent role of interventional pain physicians. 
 
Click the button below to read the complete Market Outlook article "Trends to Watch in 2025: Interventional Technologies Disrupting the Treatment of CLBP" by Kris Jacques, SmartTRAK  Sr Analyst, Spine and Intradiscal Therapeutics.Get the Article
Topics: Spine
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