Developing orthopedics for children

By GENE STOWE

Tribune Correspondent

Nick Deeter, founder and CEO of OrthoPediatrics, is tapping into a relatively small market with orthopedic devices for children and small-stature adults usually overlooked by industry giants.

His year-old company is the fulfillment of an idea Deeter had years ago, with technology evolving to fill the unique needs of growing young people.

“The company was kind of a brainstorm of mine that goes back almost 15 years,” he says. “The opportunity presented itself in the last few years with the movement in orthopedics toward implantable devices in children.

“Kids are not just small adults. It’s not only a size issue, but the anatomy is very different, including bone curves, hip offsets, and bones that are more flexible and softer than adults’. “The bigger issue with children is they’re growing.”

Solutions must be adaptable, changeable, replaceable, or, like modern biologics, able to help existing tissue grow.

Practices to treat children’s problems have already been evolving, partly with an eye to quality of life. For example, scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, was treated with back braces that pushed and pulled the structure in an effort to straighten it.

“Now a surgeon will go in and actually straighten that spine and put rods in,” Deeter says. “The clinical practices changed over time.”

Doctors also are using less casting on children’s bone fractures.

“They get back to school faster, and you don’t have to do with a smelly cast for eight weeks,” he says.

Pediatric surgeons see the progress that the adult market has made and are eager to work with the company,” Deeter says. “Some have altered products to use for children, but the alteration shifts liability for the material from the manufacturer to the hospital.

“We’re working with numerous pediatric orthopedic surgeons from around the country that are on our advisory board. We’re developing their ideas and turning them into product.”

OrthoPediatrics workers design and develop the products, outsource the manufacturing and handle the distribution with a network of salespeople.

“In the Warsaw area, there’s lots of manufacturing capacity,” Deeter says, adding that the town’s status as “orthopedic capital of the world” also means talent is available to help with designs. Although the industry is heavily regulated, many of the products can reach the market in 90 days with FDA approval because they are modifications of already-approved devices for adults. Child-specific products take longer, and biotech items can take up to five years.

A market research study showed that $400 million of the products were being used with children although they weren’t designed for children, but that’s a fraction of the $28 billion worldwide market for adult hips and knees.

“All we need to do is come up with the stuff that works right in the anatomy of children,” Deeter says.

Dave Bailey, vice president of sales and distribution, says the market is not attractive to large-scale manufacturers. Product lines run $5 million to $15 million compared to $40 million to $45 million in the adult market.

For more information on OrthoPediatrics, see the company’s Web site at www.orthopediatrics.com.

Article published Sep 3, 2007