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Merger – CurveBeam (Orthopedic imaging) + StraxCorp (AI bone health).

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Orthopedic imaging company CurveBeam and StraxCorp, a provider of cloud-based software to improve bone health, have entered into a definitive merger agreement to form CurveBeam AI.

CurveBeam AI brings CurveBeam’s point-of-care imaging solutions into the bone health space and expands artificial intelligence-driven applications for weight bearing CT imaging, according to a Sept. 6 news release.
CurveBeam developed weight bearing CT imaging systems for orthopedic specialties and has installed more than 160 systems worldwide. Examining bone and joint alignment in a functional position allows for better diagnosis of lower extremity conditions including flat foot, patellar instability and hip dysplasia, according to the company.
StraxCorp specializes in providing AI systems for bone separation, segmentation and microstructure as a way to improve bone fragility screening to help clinicians prevent fragility fractures.
“CurveBeam AI will offer proprietary tools to improve patient outcomes at a speed and scope that CurveBeam could not alone,” CurveBeam CEO Arun Singh said. “Weight bearing CT imaging will remain a core focus, however this merger signifies our steadfast commitment to build the complementary AI software tools that will reduce the barriers to adoption.”
CurveBeam AI, which has 51 employees, will be an unlisted public company backed by several professional investors and is targeting an initial public offering in 2023.

CURVEBEAM & STRAXCORP ENTER INTO DEFINITIVE MERGER AGREEMENT TO FORM CURVEBEAM AI (press release)
HATFIELD, Pa., Sept. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — CurveBeam, LLC of Hatfield PA, USA and StraxCorp Pty Ltd of Melbourne VIC, Australia announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement to form CurveBeam AI Limited. CurveBeam AI expands CurveBeam’s financially viable point-of-care imaging solutions into the bone health space, as well as springboards artificial intelligence (AI) driven applications for weight bearing CT (WBCT) imaging.
CurveBeam pioneered WBCT systems for the orthopedic specialties. Examining bone & joint alignment in a functional position allows for better diagnosis of lower extremity conditions including flat foot, patellar instability, and hip dysplasia.
CurveBeam AI will host a press conference with CEO Greg Brown and COO, CTO (CT), & President (US Division) Arun Singh on Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 2 p.m. EST to discuss the merger. To register for the press conference, visit: https://marketscale.com/live/curvebeam-is-now-curvebeam-ai/
CurveBeam has installed more than 160 systems around the globe at leading orthopedic institutions.
StraxCorp specializes in providing AI and deep learning AI (DLAI) solutions for bone separation, segmentation, and microstructure as a means for improving bone fragility screening to aid clinicians in preventing fragility fractures.
The companies have been collaborating since 2018. CurveBeam AI will apply the same AI & DLAI solutions to automated orthopedic analyses and will deliver both platforms as “Software as a Medical Device’ through the Cloud.
“CurveBeam AI will offer proprietary tools to improve patient outcomes at a speed and scope that CurveBeam could not alone,” said Arun Singh, CEO of Curvebeam. “Weight bearing CT imaging will remain a core focus, however this merger signifies our steadfast commitment to build the complementary AI software tools that will reduce the barriers to adoption.”
In partnership with StraxCorp, CurveBeam adapted the resolution of its InReach cone beam CT imaging system for the distal extremities to assess bone microstructure. The InReach HR-pQCT (high resolution peripheral quantitative CT) offers a resolution of 80 micron to visualize cortical porosity and trabecular density. The solution takes HR-pQCT out of the research setting to the point-of-care to improve bone fragility assessment. Austin Hospital, located in Melbourne, has been conducting research studies using the InReach HR-pQCT.
“StraxCorp’s vision of delivering DLAI solutions at the point-of-care is best served by joining forces with a respected and trusted partner that ensures a new standard in high resolution CT imaging,” said Greg Brown, CEO of StraxCorp. “Often differences in scanner settings can be a major source of errors. Controlling image quality globally gives us an optimized platform to deliver a world class population health solution.”
Recent studies have validated the need for bone health assessment prior to orthopedic joint replacement surgery to prevent adverse outcomes. Bone Fragility (osteoporosis/osteopenia) is a major risk factor for complications, such as perioperative fragility fractures, periprosthetic fractures and late aseptic loosening associated with the implants. Bone density defined osteoporosis can miss up to 80 percent of fragility fractures1. Bone microstructure has been proven to be a more direct assessment of bone fragility than density alone.
CurveBeam AI’s global operations headquarters for product development, Regulatory, manufacturing and operations including marketing, sales and customer care will remain in Hatfield PA, USA. CurveBeam AI’s corporate office in Melbourne, VIC, Australia, will cover AI research & development, corporate finance, and IP functions. CurveBeam AI, which has 51 employees, will be an unlisted public company backed by several major professional investors and is targeting an Initial Public Offering in 2023.
About CurveBeam
CurveBeam researches, designs, and manufactures cone beam CT imaging systems for the orthopedic specialties. CurveBeam’s corporate headquarters is located in Hatfield, Pennsylvania.
About StraxCorp
StraxCorp is a specialist provider of cloud based medical software solutions to aid in the improvement of bone health. StraxCorp is located in Melbourne VIC, Australia.
1Samelson E et al, Cortical and trabecular bone microarchitecture as an independent predictor of incident fracture risk in older women and men in the Bone Microarchitecture International Consortium (BoMIC): a prospective study.Lancet .Published online November 28, 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(18)30308-5
SOURCE CURVEBEAM AI

Dear Engineer, how close are you to the customer?

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I believe that Engineers who work closest to the surgeon customer have the biggest career opportunities.
You will notice that most CEOs with tech backgrounds, worked closely with surgeons early in their career. This is part of my advice for young engineers here – Real Career Advice for Young Engineers.

Product Development Engineer (other titles are R&D Engineer, Design Engineer, Project Engineer, Principal Engineer) – This Engineer usually has Mechanical background. They work with surgeons, do CAD design, prototyping, testing, . Other Engineering disciplines in Product Development are Electrical Engineer, Software Engineer, and Mechatronics Engineer.
Technical Field Engineer – This Engineer works in sales but provides technical assistance in surgery with the sales rep.
Systems Engineer – This Engineer is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining the information technology systems for medical device.
Testing Engineer – This Engineer breaks things and writes reports (usually found in bigger companies)
Quality Engineer (aka Quality Assurance Engineer) – This Engineer ss responsible for determining production standards for a company’s products by establishing quality control systems and setting product requirement rules. Their duties include identifying the specifications for an ideal product, determining an appropriate level of variation and monitoring quality assurance rates.
Remediation Engineer – This Engineer documents design processes (Design Control, DHF), usually a contract position, Zimmer-Biomet hired hundreds of REs to fix their quality problems in 2020.
Reliability Engineer (aka a Failure Analysis Engineer) – This Engineer is a manufacturing and production specialist who studies equipment life cycles and performs analyses to inform how a business invests in and maintains assets.
Manufacturing Engineer – This Engineer serves as a liaison between design engineering and manufacturing. It’s easy to make 5 parts, but really hard to make thousands. They converts a frozen design into processes, fixtures, BOMs, etc.
Process Engineer – This Engineer works in a manufacturing environment, usually larger companies with on-site manufacturing. They conduct research to develop new and improved processes for manufacturing such as 6-Sigma and statistical analyses.
Biocompatibility Engineer – This Engineer develops biocompatibility strategies and prepare biological evaluation plan and reports. They coordinate biocompatibility testing of materials and designs in accordance with FDA requirements, internal SOPs, and standards.

Integrating Digital Content inside the orthopedic surgical field can help to improve Patient Care

On January 9th, 2007, Steve Jobs stood before the MacWorld gathering in San Francisco and announced a new product. As the audience cheered, he introduced the device as a fusion of music , phone, and internet connectivity. Up until that time if you wanted all three you needed three separate devices. The iPhone, as it was called, was a revolutionary technology: it changed how we live and work by providing immediate access to communication and information.
Smart phones are used today in ways that even Jobs couldn’t have imagined, all at the touch of our fingers. We look to our screens to get instant information: we can query our phone to locate a restaurant and get directions to it. We can search for the most obscure product, identify it, and order it in seconds. And we can watch videos on how to put together or operate almost anything we can think of.
Smart phones are fantastic at three general tasks: communicating; searching, identifying and locating; and delivering functional information in a timely and accurate manner. I daresay many of us can imagine life without them.
Surgeons and surgical technician staff are on a proverbial island while in the sterile field. They can’t touch anything outside the field, and should stay focused on the patient. Orthopedic (actually all) surgery, however, is not as scripted as one might think. I was a trauma device rep in thousands of OR cases over 15 years, and can attest that surgeons or surgical technicians often need to access three things: communication (such as talking to a pathologist or perhaps a device rep), location of something not currently available in the sterile field (such as a specialty instrument or a biologic), and functional information about a component of the surgery (such as a tray/set overview or directions for preparing a bone cement or biologic that is to used by the surgeon).
So let’s review: “smart” phones and internet connectivity are great at providing three things in an accurate and immediate fashion: communication, identification and location, and functional information. The orthopedic surgical field staff often have three direct needs that arise during surgery: a need to communicate with someone outside the room, identification and location of an item outside the room, and information on the functional set up or overview of a product to be used.

Does anyone else see an opportunity here?
Introducing Einstein, Summate Technologies’ revolutionary O.R. smart cart. In addition to scanning and tracking item implant usage directly from the sterile field, Einstein delivers, for the first time, digital information content and communication to the surgeon and surgical technician. Search, identify and locate items in other trays and sets outside the room; look up and communicate directly from the patient site via VOIP telephony; and access a growing variety of video information such as set and tray overview videos, IFU guides, assembly videos, and room set up information. Einstein even plays the surgeon’s favorite Spotify channel. It’s digital content delivered to and instantaneously viewed by those who actually use it – the surgeon and surgical technician in the field.
Basically, Einstein is a smart phone for the surgical field staff. And I am willing to bet this technology becomes as indispensable to better surgical outcomes as that iPhone in your pocket has become to you.

Stay tuned!
For more information, contact:
Phil Saylesemail: [email protected]: summate.NET

Dynamite for your Orthopedic Company

If you want to build an ordinary orthopedic company, hire safe people.
This hiring is easy. Just hire people based on experience alone who fit neatly into your job description. These people will follow instructions and work within their space. These are safe hires. Once on board, you will show them their office and tell them what to work on. They will do it. If this is OK for your company, you can stop reading this article right now and read something different on OrthoStreams.

If you want the build a remarkable orthopedic company, hire entrepreneurial people.
This hiring is more challenging. These people may not fit the job description. Hire based on their traits, not their experience. They may have had multiple jobs in their careers. Their past may be checkered with wins and losses. Their previous companies/projects/ventures may have failed. They may even look funny, sound funny and not fit in exactly into your culture.

So if you are interested in an injection of entrepreneurial-types, what should you look for?
I have noticed five character traits in individuals that indicate an entrepreneurial bent. Many of these can be tested or teased out during the interview process.

1) They Act First
Entrepreneurial-types would rather act than deliberate. The best orthopedic companies often don’t start with a brilliant idea, they iterate into one. It’s hard to learn from thinking. It’s much easier to learn from doing. Entrepreneurs are high-initiative individuals who lean in. They finish their thinking long before everyone else does. They want to act. Ideas were meant to be executed, not discussed in meetings for hours. Entrepreneurial employees get fidgety during meetings, don’t show up to meetings, or have an urge to quit talking and start doing.

2) They are Attracted to Risk
Entrepreneurial types are drawn towards risk because they see potential there. They are almost always “optimists”. They believe that the time or money invested in a new idea will pan out and be worth it. In your company, they will often make or support risky decisions. Heck, they may have joined your company because of the risk in the business model. Outside of your company, often they can be found participating in risky or wild adventures.

3) They are Motivated by Big Challenges
Many employees shrink into the background when big challenges emerge. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, rise to the occasion. Big challenges motivate them to work harder. They become energized by the call for “all hands on deck”. These are the employees who are staying late and working weekends to solve the big problems. They lock in and become more engaged.

4) They have an Ownership Mentality
Entrepreneurial types think like owners of your company. This mindset makes them comfortable with ambiguity and understanding exactly how their role impacts and affects others at the company. In this ownership mentality, they seek out the most creative solutions, without constantly seeking approval and slowing things down. They don’t wait for managers to bring feedback, insight, and suggestions to every meeting. When things get really hairy the entrepreneurs usually stick around and try to help find the solution, while the others will leave your company for a more comfortable ecosystem.

5) They have an underlying Hunger
Entrepreneurs have an innate hunger inside them. They sometimes call it an “itch”. This itch is usually demonstrated early in life, in high-school or their early twenties. When you interview them, you often find that they have a side hustle, a part-time job on weekends, consulting, a patent, etc. They moonlight. Often their side hustle may give them added energy, enthusiasm, and creativity that they will bring to your company.

A Word of Caution
Your entrepreneurial hires may not feel comfortable at first. They may not work well with your existing teams. However, do not be fooled. These entrepreneur-types are seldom lone rangers. They will seek out the right people to work with to make magic happen.
By nature, they will not respect some boundaries in your company that others take for granted. They have a tendency to come up with new and better ways of doing things, inside or outside their job. These entrepreneurial hires may add new stress to the organization. You may clash with them–desperately at times!
That’s the price of having dynamite on your team. They may change your organization, and they may even change the world.

The Future of Marketing in Orthopedics

Massive change is running through all of Orthopedics right now.
One area ripe for change is Marketing.

Today
Today, orthopedic marketing is out of date and broken.

In 2018, most of the marketing efforts are focused on features. This is so 1990. Half of the marketing professionals in orthopedics are “converted” engineers who were trained to think about design. The majority of spending in the orthopedic marketing is for physical things – marketing collateral, packaging, trade show booths, sales samples, cadaveric surgical training, and bad company websites. Walk around any orthopedic trade show and you will see materials claiming, “My feature is better than your feature”. Marketing with physical items is dead.

Orthopedics marketing just has not kept up with other fields. My guess is that there are two reasons.

The orthopedic sales process is still largely a relationship sell. Orthopedic companies spend their budgets on sales first and the marketing second.
Margins are still very high so you don’t have to be that competitive with your marketing techniques (by contrast, margins are tiny in the restaurant business and they need great marketing to survive).

Tomorrow
The future of marketing in orthopedics is digital.

Real people live in social media. Orthopedic surgeons and patients learn, collaborate and share on social media. When an orthopedic surgeon steps into a hospital, it’s like stepping back in time. When a patient has an interaction with an orthopedic specialist, it’s like stepping back in time.

Orthopedic companies that learn to leverage digital marketing will have a great temporary advantage because most “don’t get it” right now.

Let me get specific now.

Who will you Market to in the Future?
Medicine is becoming patient-driven and patient-centric. Internet-savvy patients are super-informed. The old days are gone when a patient blindly follows the instructions of the surgeon in the white coat. Today’s patients and their supporting families can carry out state-of-the-art research on surgical techniques, hospital performance, and even implant results. They can also evaluate non-surgical options for comparison. Surgeons hate patients who come in with a procedure preference unless they were sent indirectly there by your company. In this case, you have extended the surgeon’s marketing reach.

So, for those orthopedic technologies that have an easily understood patient benefit, companies should forget about the surgeon and focus on the patient. Successful companies will market directly to patients (DTC) and gently lead the patients to their surgeons. You MUST learn to engage patients directly because EVERYONE uses the internet to search for medical treatments.

What content will you Market in the Future?
When you market to either targeted surgeons or patients, you must provide valuable content, not a sales pitch. If the surgeon or patient reading your information cares, it’s content. If they don’t care, it’s an ad.

Share great stories about how your products solve problems every day. Have the patients tell that story themselves. Have surgeons tell the story about how your products save time, cost or complexity. Make it convenient for targeted patients to find your honest product information through multiple social media channels, and in return, you will receive honest interest.

Which social media? I suggest that you start by using all the channels available and then adjust your spend as you measure the results. Be careful with one-size-fits-all content. Each channel will require slightly different content to be effective in connecting with surgeons and patients and driving sales.

Focus your marketing efforts on these seven channels. The most impactful ones are at the top. Here is my specific advice for orthopedic companies on your approach to each social platform.

Your Facebook fan page – (FB is like the new TV, use ads to share engaging and collaborative content directed towards patients, your images should be 1080 X 1080 px, max video length should be 45min).
LinkedIn – (LI is the new B2B world, use ads to share long-form content directed towards surgeons, your images should be 1,200 X 628 px, max video length should be 10 mins).
Instagram – (IG is all about beautiful images, use ads to share great pictures with minimal content directed towards younger patients and surgeons, your images should be 1,080 X 1,080 px, max video length should be 1 min).
Youtube – (YouTube is democratized video, publish honest 1-3 minute videos of your products in action from the perspective of the patient or surgeon with a call to action).
Twitter – (Twitter is the new water-cooler, share valuable advice to patients and surgeons that prompt discussion, your images should be 1,024 X 512 px, max video length should be 2 min).
Your patient-centric website – (share a ton of useful content with a call-to-action to “Find a Surgeon Near Me” that advocates your products).
Your company website – (focus should be informational only, nobody cares about your website).

How will your Marketing result in financial success in the Future?
Today, the metrics of traditional marketing of orthopedic devices are lacking. There is no good data. You really don’t know why a surgeon chose to use your device, or not. Its funny how everyone takes credit for the sale – R&D “great design”, Marketing “great branding & positioning”, Sales “great relationship building and hustle”. Then its funny how everyone points fingers when sales are low – “bad design”, “poor marketing”, “bad selling job”, “pricing”.

The metrics in digital marketing today world are MIND-BLOWING. You will create specific ads, content and landing pages directed towards certain patient groups. When a 55-year-old woman in Dallas searches social media for lumbar fusion treatments, she will see your targeted ad with honest content (targeted for her specific age, diagnosis, and city). Your ad will lead her directly to your surgeon in Dallas. You can follow the lead through the entire patient journey, and track whether or not the resulting surgeon appointment ultimately led to a procedure using your device.

Unlike traditional marketing, you can change the digital campaign every week, play with AB testing, and improve your metrics each week. This kind of transparency allows your marketing campaigns to be instantly analyzed, changed, and successful. And here is the dirty little secret, “Social media marketing is cheaper than what you are doing today”.

What are the new areas to Market?
Clinical Studies. Digital marketing is a powerful tool for building clinical studies. Today only 11% of clinical studies are using a social media component. Soon 100% of recruitment for studies will be driven through social media. Why? Because social media recruitment offers great advantages:

the ability to directly target potential patients who meet specific inclusion/exclusion criteria
the ability to have direct communication with targeted patients
cheaper than the old way
easily scalable as your study expands

Clinical data. In the near future, clinical data will become a currency that can also be marketed. All orthopedic studies will have a wearable data component. Check out MC10 for an example –https://www.mc10inc.com/. Whoever “owns” the data will have great leverage. Clinical data will be marketed by both patients and manufacturers. Let’s look at both.

Patients will take full ownership of their own medical data and share it with “medical information exchange systems”. These systems allow patients to save, manage, and share their own records. Patients who find a way to “own” their clinical data will learn to shop it around for lower insurance premiums or cash. This is similar to the young automobile drivers in the UK who share real-time driving behavior to lower their insurance premiums. Its a no-brainer for the young UK driver who is facing high premiums through traditional insurance. Online startups will curate the clinical data from thousands of patients (with permission of course). These new middlemen will find buyers for the curated clinical data around key criteria that are valuable to the buyers – age brackets, patient locations, hospital point of care, specific implant or procedure. The algorithms will repackage the data and sell it over and over. What about privacy? Much like you are giving away your privacy to Google and Facebook for access to these great tools, patients will give away medical information for the financial benefits.

Orthopedic manufacturers will collect and analyze clinical data around specific procedures and implant systems using wearables and other new data collection tools. These forward-thinking manufacturers will be able to use this data to negotiate better hospital contracts, government contracts, and negotiate with regulatory bodies for better claims. Think of it as owning a national joint replacement registry, but more granular around your devices.

How is your Orthopedic company using digital marketing to drive sales?

Contact me for a free consultation today – https://www.tigerorthoconsulting.com/digital-marketing/

Merger – CurveBeam (Orthopedic imaging) + StraxCorp (AI bone health).

Dear Engineer, how close are you to the customer?

Integrating Digital Content inside the orthopedic surgical field can help to improve Patient Care

Dynamite for your Orthopedic Company

The Future of Marketing in Orthopedics

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