Derrick Johns, President and CEO of DiFusion Technologies, discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with developing and commercializing a new biomaterial in an interview with SmartTRAK.
Nearly every company in Spine (and dare we say all of Orthopedics) is working to find the holy grail of biomaterials for interbody implants and more. DiFusion Technologies’ President and CEO Derrick Johns discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with bringing a novel material to market in an interview with SmartTRAK.
To listen to the interview, recorded live via Zoom, click on the following video. A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is also provided below.
SmartTRAK: I'm Julianne Burns, senior analyst and general manager of SmartTRAK Spine, and today I'm joined by Derrick Johns, President and CEO of DiFusion Technologies. DiFusion is focused on developing materials for fusion procedures designed to proactively modulate the immune system to improve bone formation. It's really interesting technology. Derrick, thank you for joining me.
Derrick Johns: Thank you, Julianne.
So let's jump right in. DiFusion's ZFUZE material is a load-bearing biomaterial specifically designed for positive bone growth and immune response. And it's an innovative technology. And it's very timely as the market is shifting away from traditional PEEK implants. So Derrick, what excites you most about DiFusion's technology,
DJ: It's an entirely different way of looking at bone fusion, Julianne. And like all great inventions, we sort of stumbled into it. We initially founded the company to develop an antimicrobial polymer that wouldn't form biofilms and we had gone to the FDA with a 513 G, we're told that it was a class two device. So we went to Europe, got a CE mark and came back with a fusion equivalency protocol. FDA changed course and sent us 53 pages of questions that were geared toward a dual device IDE trial. We actually had learned a lot about the immune system and doing things because we had an antimicrobial component in the polymer and had to look at how that affected cells. It really led us to the potential for having ...
To download a complete transcript of the "ZFUZE: Spine's Next Big Biomaterial" interview with Derrick Johns, President and CEO of DiFusion Technologies, just click the button below.
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