Episode Transcript
Tom Salemi here of DeviceTalks. Welcome back to the Ortho Innovation Talks podcast. Our guest today is Marc Mackey. Marc is the SVP and General Manager of Enabling Technologies at Enovis. Enovis is one of the leading orthopedic companies out in the MedTech industry. We're going to talk about Marc's journey into MedTech. We'll talk about how new technologies like AI and VR are finding their way into the orthopedics industry.
And we'll talk about why surgeons are adopting these new technologies, how they make the job of surgery simpler. So Enovis is one of the leaders in this space. Very happy to have them as a content partner for the Ortho Enovistion Talks podcast. But none of this happens without our sponsors, like Regenity, our sponsor of today's episode. So, before we get into my conversation with Marc Mackey, I'd like to hand the microphone and the camera over to Kayleen Brown, managing editor of DeviceTalks.
Peggy Hansen, General Manager, Contract Development and Manufacturing, and SVP of Quality, Regulatory and Clinical Affairs for Regenity Biosciences. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Peggy, this is the very first time I've got the chance to sit down with you to learn more about Regenity Biosciences. So I'm hoping you could give us a really quick intro into how Regenity supports medical technology companies?
Sure.
At Regenity, we develop and manufacture bioresorbable products that repair and regenerate soft tissue and bone. We work with partners in the MedTech industry to design products that meet specific clinical requirements using biomaterials, such as collagen, bioceramics and synthetic polymers.
Well, clearly, Regenity is an expert in bioresorbable technologies. Can you help me understand where you're seeing the most opportunities, opportunity in bioresorbable technologies for MedTech?
Sure. You know, we're seeing a lot of opportunity for bioresorbable technologies in many clinical segments. For example, rotator cuff patches in sports medicine, antimicrobial dressings and wound care. You know, in general, I would say bioresorbable technologies can be applied to any injury or defect to help facilitate the body's own natural ability to heal and regenerate.
So, Peg, then what clinical or technological shifts are driving demand for regenerative implants?
Yeah, we're seeing that surgeons and patients are increasingly looking for products that actively contribute to healing and regenerating tissue. And because developing regenerative implants is pretty complex, MedTech companies are often looking to specialized CDMOs to help develop these products.
Well, that's a perfect segue. So then, from your perspective, how are CDMOs responding?
Well, I think CDMOs are adapting by applying various technologies and processes and combining them with regulatory and operational expertise to ultimately deliver products with specific design requirements and with, of course, speed to market in mind. With respect to expanding technology capability, I think some CDMOs are looking to acquire additional complementary biomaterials and other technologies.
For example, at Regenity, we acquired Polyganics back in 2023 to broaden our capabilities, but also in order to offer our customers additional options to deliver products to meet their needs.
We're going to take a really quick break from my conversation with this episode sponsor, Regenity to bring you our interview with Marc Mackey of Enovis. But fun fact, Regenity is known for making a material difference, so please visit their website www.regenity.com. That's regenity.com to learn why.
Well, Marc Mackey, welcome to the podcast.
Well, thanks Tom. It's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to the discussion.
Awesome. So we're going to talk. Enovis has been a great part of our Ortho Enovistion series. Ortho is one of those sectors that's evolved and really very quickly is adopting new technologies. And you lead the enabling tech group at Enovis. So I want to unpack all of that in a moment and understand what that means. But before we get into the the how and the what, we love to understand the who and how our guests found their way into this great MedTech industry. What was your, what lured you into into MedTech, Marc?
Thanks Tom. It's interesting. I came from space, let's call it. So I, you know, it started, you know, as an undergrad was aerospace and aero and astronautical engineering and my grad program at UCSD was working on a lab funded by NASA in biomedical engineering where we looked at kind of physiologic response to microgravity with some folks that were in that program and got exposed to the medical field quite a bit there. And then my first role out of grad school was actually with a company called Carl Zeiss and they had developed one of the very first neurosurgical robots was a robot that had heads up display, voice control, all these very advanced, kind of ahead of their time features.
Been in the tech space ever since in healthcare. So I, you know, I got really excited about you know, how this technology could be applied for patient treatment. There's, you know, tons of tech out there and you could see the trajectory of where things were going and how we can improve patient treatment. And that, you know, those. That early experience really got me excited about, you know, the path. And, you know, since then, you know, I spent about 20 years at Brain Lab for most of my career, where I number of different roles and product management. I ran the service org a little bit, did business development and partnerships, and I wound up as general manager of the orthopedic business unit there, which included a cloud platform and a surgical navigation system.
And then spent a couple of years at Smith and Nephew running the robotics program there with Navio and Corey, and then did a little stint in spine, launching an augmented reality navigation device and some machine learning for interpretation of diagnostic imaging in the lumbar spine. So basically quantifying and detecting stenosis in the central canal lateral recess foraminal stenosis. And I joined Enovis about 14 months ago.
You've really been straddling the tech and MedTech worlds throughout. And I want to unpack a few of those stops. But before that, I see you went to Purdue University. Anyone who's listening to this podcast regularly knows that my son's going there also hoping to go into aerospace, but I'm also hoping to steer him into MedTech. So what was it that. I mean, aerospace people are kind of nuts. Like, they're like MedTech people.
They love what they do, and I think it's fantastic. What caused you to stray from that pack?
Yeah, I think I'd always been interested. My brother, my older brother there was an emergency room physician, so I got exposed to that as a younger kid, basically in my grad program, working with some of the test subjects and so on and seeing how this can advance medical treatment. I got a little bit of exposure to that. So when the opportunity to join a neurosurgical robotics company came up, I kind of jumped at the chance. This was really exciting field for me because it was.
Yeah, I had everything, aerospace, you know, kind of advanced technology, robotics, software, you know, married with patient treatment.
So very cool. And I know Zeiss as more of an ophthalmology company.
Okay.
I wasn't aware of the neurotech robot element of it.
Yeah, that was early on. You know, they had since got out of the navigation business. But they make some of the most advanced, you know, neurosurgical microscopes on the market, and they still offer some of these advanced features like voice control, heads up display and are powered by navigation systems. So you see a lot of that in neurosurgery.
Interesting. And talk, if you would, about, I alluded to at the top the way orthopedics is morphing and adopting new technologies. So you've been again at this intersection for quite a time. Where are we in sort of that, in that transition of bringing in new technologies? I get the sense that it's been the last 10 years, obviously Mako and orthopedic surgery and a few other elements as well. But how long from your perspective has this been going on and how far along are we in bringing new technologies, enabling technologies into orthopedic?
Well, it's been an interesting road and I was involved with some of the very first navigation systems in orthopedics and there's been a cycle. If you look back and you see kind of navigation systems adopted in the early 2000s to the 2010 or so, and then you saw a transition from navigation to PSI guides where patient specific guides that are pre printed. And Then probably since 2017 or so, robotics has been, I would say, you know, kind of the, the main technology. And it's interesting to see the, the scope of adoption of technology and particularly knee arthroplasty. And you know, I think it's because, you know, why wouldn't you want a measurement? Right. You know, in a knee arthroplasty you're, you're relying on millimeters and degrees.
And so I think, you know, surgeons see a lot of value in, you know, just being able to visualize what they're resecting beyond what, you know, the metal instruments are telling them. And there's some other reasons for the adoption, particularly recently around patient specific alignment. And when you're leaving the patient maybe in a more natural alignment rather than mechanically neutral, you want to understand exactly where you are. So you're not kind of going outside the guardrails and putting the alignments in maybe a non traditional mechanical way.
There's also the addition of gap balancing which now it's really the only way that you can measure gaps through the range of motion is by using some kind of navigation, augmented reality or robotics technology. Because you're measuring through the range of motion and a lot of surgeons will like to be able to optimize for that when they develop their plan.
Gaps, meaning gap between implant and the patient's tissue?
Yeah, it's basically what you want to make sure is that you're not loose in one compartment or the other. And so you might be Mechanically aligned. But your gaps, you know, where your soft tissue envelope is maybe a little bit looser in the medial side or the lateral or vice versa. You want to make sure your soft tissue is equally tensioned through the range of motion. So a lot of surgeons will say knee arthroplasty is a soft tissue operation as much as a bony procedure where you make accurate cuts. But you also want to make sure that your knee is stable through the range of motion. And navigation and technology does a really good job of assessing that soft tissue envelope.
What is that the, the path toward adoption look like? Because from covering orthopedics a time ago, there was a time when, when basically it was said, well, 90%, 95%, whatever, incredibly high percent of the surgeries are successful. So you really don't need robotics, you really don't need technology. There was a, there was a, if not an active resistance, a passive resistance, like, we're fine, we don't need all this stuff.
What is the. What is. How have you. How has awareness been raised enough that there's a identification or an acknowledgement that we do need this stuff and this kind of help?
Yeah, I do think anyway, and we've done a lot of market research on this, you know, over the years and looking at, you know, what are the reasons for adoption of technology. And it used to be that, you know, particularly in robotics where it was a lot was, you know, driven by, you know, marketing of the device and, you know, being a center of excellence in the community. But if you look at the reasons of adoption now, a lot of it is about, well, I want to be sure the cuts are accurate.
I want to have an accurate quantification of the soft tissue envelope and I want to do some of these more patient specific alignment techniques. So that is a big driver of tech right now. And because you're moving from, well, to your point. Well, I kind of don't need it. But it's a good marketing tool to recognizing the benefits that this measurement and detailed assessment of the joint can offer. So I do think we're in the middle of a transition. And also the younger generation, a lot of them are going through fellowships that are being trained with robotics or navigation or some kind of technology where they have this device that's giving them an assessment of the joint. So you get kind of comfortable having that detailed second pair of eyes, so to speak.
No, that's interesting. And I was going to ask whether it's the surgeons who are sort of pulling this train or whether it's the payers or whether it's the patients. Is there one force here that's really pushing for more of this and for more data and for more just.
I think it's definitely coming from the surgeons. I mean, certainly patients want to be assured that they're getting the best treatment. Right. You know, they'll come and they, you know, will do the research and ask for technology or what kind of technology the surgeon is using. But the surgeons are really driving this. Of course, we don't, you know, surgeons typically don't, you know, just adopt the technology because, you know, the patient is acting, you know, asking for it. They're. They're looking for, you know, device that's going to assist them in the practice. So I do think a lot of it's driven by surgeons, but patients are also aware that there's these advanced techniques.
That's great. So, going back to your career path. So you joined Enovis in 2023, November 2023. What was it about the opportunity at Enovis that you found appealing?
Yeah, I think for me it was about kind of the clean whiteboard. Enovis hadn't been in technology for many years, like a lot of the. So we could really take a fresh look at where is the market going in five years. What does technology need to look like to reach mass adoption? And without coming in and having to worry about an install base of X, Y or Z that you've got to support with A, B and C resources, it really was about, okay, now we can skate to where the puck is going to.
And Enovis had made some really intriguing acquisitions in the enabling tech space that I was highly interested in and just being able to have the opportunity to join a company like Enovis, that is fast growth, was a large company that wasn't a small startup or so, but had the resources to really drive technology and be able to start from. I don't want to say start from scratch because the technology was already there, but there's certainly not a legacy install base that you have to support and maintain.
Yeah, I would think historically that a new company coming into the ortho space would certainly have. I think anybody has a big challenge in sort of gaining market share here, but it would seem to me that with enabling tech and these sort of tools, if you come in with the right application, you can really grab a lot of eyeballs and a lot of share more quickly. Is that how you see it? Is that the opportunity?
I do. And if you look at Enovis has been able to grow in these very well without technology. And so our total addressable market was essentially non technology using surgeons not three years ago. So now that we're have a solid offering in the tech space, that's opening up that segment of the market to further fuel the growth. So from an Enovis's perspective, it's a great opportunity and like I said, we can offer tech that say at the leading edge rather than trailing edge start to look at second generation robotics, second generation technology that will drive that meet the specific needs of how surgeons are thinking about technology and arthroplasty.
Could you introduce us to what you have as an enabling technology portfolio, what are its origins in and talk a bit about what you're offering?
Yeah, yeah. So the Arvis technology that we have is an augmented reality device that has, it's a wearable device. So it has sensors built into the headset that the surgeon wears and those serve as the tracking cameras and the information is all self contained. So it's the projecting the navigation info right in the surgeon's field of view. So it's a very small device offers augmented reality is also very, very cost effective.
So Enovis had made some investments in a company called Insights Medical back I think 2022 or so and had been following the company and then ultimately acquired the company and then we've been iterating on the platform ever since. So typically back in 2022, the platform's early. You've got kind of early hardware, early software. You need to iterate on that quite a bit. But we're past that phase of, I would say, you know, teething, you know, of a next generation platform and next generation software.
And we're really excited about what it offers because if you look at, you know, where the tech is going, we can shrink this navigation device down to a little electronics package that weighs 8 ounces that you can wear. Right. And typically a traditional nav system you would ship in a couple of crates. It weighs, you know, £150 and it's got a large footprint in the OR and it's very expensive from just a component perspective.
So this with the Arvis device, it's all based on consumer sensors that were the device itself is bespoke, something we built specifically for orthopedics. But the components of the device were the beneficiaries of the investments by Google, Apple, Microsoft and building, you know, augmented reality displays, you know, iterating on compute and also the depth sensing, you know, tracking technology that's in there. So we've been able to kind of pick what we need off the shelf and assemble it in a package that is designed to be worn in the OR and then build a very specific device for surgery.
So from that perspective, that's, you know, I would consider that truly next generation, you don't have a, you know, two separate carts in the operating room. It's a very small package that can be worn.
So help me. This is a podcast, so we don't have the opportunity to show a video, but if we were to show a video, what would people see? If they're wearing the goggles, what does it look like?
Yeah, so essentially you can take a look at a couple applications, right. So, you know, in our, we're currently in limited market release with our shoulder application, but when you look through the glasses, the surgeon does have an unobstructed view. So, so if they prefer to see directly to the operating theater, they have a view that's not through any lens or so. And then if they avert their eyes up a little bit, they'll see the augmented reality display, which is a 3D representation as to where their tool is relative to the target.
So it's a very intuitive user interface when it comes to trying to orient tools or get on the specific targets that you've set out in your CT based planning application. So it's, I would say it's a kind of a 3D view that is, you know, it's aware of where it is in the operating theater. So the displays are kind of pinned above the logical places where the surgeon would want to see that information.
So is the surgeon making an adjustment of the instrument based upon the augmented image that they're seeing?
That's exactly right. And the target comes from the plan. So, you know, whether that's in knees, hips or shoulders, they, you know, will have a plan that they're trying to reproduce with the device. So that the system, through the sensors and the, in the headset, it knows where the instrument is and it knows where the plan is. And then it's helping the surgeon to align exactly on that. And it's actually, you know, it's pretty cool. I mean, the sensors are, you know, you're talking about 1 millimeter, 1 degree, you know, increments of how it tracks. So these are, you know, very sophisticated packages.
And are your products used to develop the plan too? Are you taking images, I guess, CT images of the knee and sort of drawing the plans up from that?
It depends on the application and shoulder. We do that. We do a CT based plan. We use Actually artificial intelligence, to automatically segment and landmark. Prepare the data set, let's say for the surgeon to, you know, put the implants in, you know, where they prefer and size them. And then that plan is then exported to Arvis. In the case of knees and hips, it's based on an image free technology so that you can essentially, when you register the patient, you know, the software is providing guidance as to where, you know, the surgeon wants to end up. And particularly like we were talking about earlier with gap balancing, you want to make sure that you're quantifying the envelope, the soft tissue envelope as well, to develop your targets.
We're going to take a really quick pause on our conversation with Enovis Marc Mackey to bring back this episode's sponsor, Regenity, and my conversation with Peggy Hansen, General Manager of Contract Development and Manufacturing and Senior Vice President of Quality, Regulatory and Clinical affairs for Regenity Biosciences. Okay Peggy, so what are some of the biggest development hurdles unique to regenerative or bioresorbable technologies?
I can think of about four big development hurdles that are unique to bioresorbable regenerative technologies. I think first, sourcing high quality and consistent quality raw materials, especially if sourced from xenograft or allograft tissues. The second would be ensuring that the product has a balanced implant bioresorption and tissue regeneration profile during the product's performance in the body.
A third hurdle would be ensuring biocompatibility of the product not only at the time of implantation, but also its degradation products over time. And then the final hurdle, I think it's navigating the changing regulatory environments for regenerative products.
I really liked how you laid out the four challenges as you see them. How can CDMOs help overcome those challenges?
CDMOs can help overcome these hurdles by having deep R&D material and technical expertise, a certified quality management system for sourcing and manufacturing, and an experienced team in global regulatory approvals for regenerative products. Regenity focuses on these key areas and is really known for being a CDMO in regenerative product development.
Oh, I love that. Peggy, can you help describe a scenario where a collaboration with a specialized CDMO helped accelerate development or improve outcomes?
Absolutely. I think most MedTech companies looking for a cdmo, they know what kind of product they want or need to solve a clinical problem. Basically, they know the basic design inputs, but they may not know how to develop it on their own. So one example might be a MedTech company looking for a collagen based wound care product to bring to market as a portfolio expansion to its existing line of products.
So a specialized CDMO can help accelerate development by utilizing experienced R&D engineers to limit the number of prototype iterations to freeze the design, leveraging existing design assets such as historical biocompatibility, packaging validations, shelf life data, bringing internal regulatory expertise to file the FDA submission on behalf of the customer, and then applying process know how and sterilization validations to streamline the time to production of commercial products.
With a specialized CDMO team, we have seen development timelines for new products reduced by more than 50% as compared to traditional product development timelines.
Okay Peggy, I'm having such a great time with you, but I have to round us home so what trends or technologies in regenerative medical technology should innovators keep their eyes on?
Yeah, we're seeing strong momentum around combination products such as drug eluting or bioactive devices. There's also growing interest in composite constructs like collagen polymer hybrid products that can provide biologic activity along with structural support. I think the desire for faster healing, better quality and longevity of the repaired tissues are driving these continued advancements in regenerative technologies.
Peggy Hansen, General Manager, Contract Development and Manufacturing and Senior Vice President of Quality, Regulatory and Clinical affairs for Regenity Biosciences thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Thank you, Kayleen, for having me.
I had such a great time with you, Peggy, and I'm really looking forward to my next conversation with Regenity. In the next episode of Ortho Innovation Talks, I've invited their head of marketing, Jessica Swanson, and clinical advisor Dr. Bedi, to talk about their latest innovation in sports medicine, the RejuvaKnee™ Meniscal Repair Implant. So please join us for that conversation. It's the next episode of Ortho Innovation Talks. Before then, please make sure to check out their website at Regenity.com that's R E G E N I T Y.com
and now for the conclusion of our conversation with Marc Mackey of Enovis.
So you spoke earlier about the younger generation of surgeons coming in. I imagine that influx of new folks makes something like this a lot more. You're finding more surgeons who don't mind wearing a headset because I think some folks, especially the folks who haven't wear it, maybe don't want to include that. It maybe makes them feel uncomfortable in the or what has adoption been like? And speak again if you would, to the to the changing demographic of surgeons and how that helps the adoption of this kind of technology.
Yeah, it's interesting. I wouldn't say it's exclusively younger surgeons that are adopting the technology. So just a lot of very high value volume established surgeons are interested in the technology because they've seen it in the early 2000s. They've seen where navigation was 10, 15 years ago. And then they're kind of seeing the evolution of the packaging and the form factor and are interested in how this kind of the new technology is working. When you look at, particularly in an ASC environment, you know, the small form factor is very, very important.
Right. So, so I wouldn't, you know, rule out that it's only young surgeons that are adopting us. It's actually, you know, quite a mix of our customers that are, that are, you know, adopting the tech.
I would fall into the older surgeon demographic as well. So I probably should, shouldn't malign myself. Are you, are you collecting data as well, like post operative data that can be reviewed post operatively or is it merely just showing you what's going on real time?
It does, essentially you do have some information that the device stores that, okay, this is where the cuts were made, this is where the components ended up. There is some data that's saved on the device and there is an interesting question on, okay, can you take that data, look at preoperative alignments. What was the patient alignment and soft tissue envelope pre, what was the alignment, soft tissue envelope post, and what is the outcomes? Right, so there's a very interesting question in that data that I'm personally very excited about and I think that's got a lot of potential.
So you mentioned a lot of the materials used to build this were commercial. I want to say off the shelf, but they're not something you developed internally. How do you go about protecting, do you have protected IP for this? How do you make sure that this is something that's exclusively for Enovis?
Of course we have a, you know, our teams do a great job of, you know, patenting a lot of the very core, you know, tech that they've been working on. So, you know, there's definitely. IP is part of our strategy and you know, particularly with these bleeding edge product products that, you know, might be, you know, reaching beyond the current envelope of navigation as it exists today. So, you know, IP is very, very important to us, not only on the navigation, you know, robotic side, but the, the planning, preoperative planning side as well.
And how does, how does this, how do these enabling technologies fit in with your implants? Are they, are they used only with your Implants, can they be used in other surgeries as well? How does that.
Yeah, they, they are, they are married to the implant. And it's very, very important that you think about the implants surgical technique. For instance, in a shoulder, you're planning the specific components and you're selecting a particular prosthesis or wedge size or augment. So you want to be able to reproduce that in the OR. So you want to know the geometry of your implants. You want to know exactly where you want to make the bone removal or the cuts and the reams and so on that are specific to the implant.
So it is, you know, tightly integrated to our portfolio. Now there's some basic features that you know, surgeons can do that are, you know, if you're just say doing a knee distal cut, proximal tibia, that's relatively implant independent. But as soon as you start looking at features that are, I really value add around, you know, gap balancing and preoperative planning, you want to have a tight integration with your prosthesis.
Cool. So looking forward, and this is the, if anyone has their bingo card out, this is where we ask the AI question. So where is this going forward? How is enabling technology going to evolve and where does the role of AI come into, into your technology today and in the future as well?
Yeah, there's you know, AI is a big field, right. And I would consider it a set of tools that can be used in different, you know, areas. For instance there's, you know a field of AI is called random forest models where you know, essentially it's a decision tree. So you use that looking at like Netflix and Amazon recommendations are all based on random forest models where it's a decision tree where you have huge amounts of decisions that wind up and then you pick the statistically likely outcome of that. Those can be used in predictive models.
So looking at a patient with a certain demographic, certain pain scores, certain comorbidities and then you look at the outcomes based on a particular treatment and you can use those to predict an outcome. So this is a very interesting area. Another field is called convolutional neural nets which are pretty typically used in medical imaging where convolutional neural nets are used to say detect in self driving cars. It'll look at a stop sign, it knows it's stop sign, looks at pedestrian what cars are by.
It's basically image computer vision. And we use that in our own planning tools to look at segmenting in the shoulder, what's humerus, what's glenoid with Scapula, where are the landmarks, the key landmarks that we need that the surgeon is interested in to develop a surgical plan? So the AI or the convolutional neural net is labeling all that for them. So when they go to plan, they don't have to do all that manual work. So we use that for automation in the imaging workflow. And that's very important because we export that plan to the Arvis system.
So, yeah, there's a number of fields of AI that are going to provide a lot of automation and then also in terms of, I would say prescribing a particular treatment for a very specific cohort of patients. So the way we're thinking about it is really in developing the surgical plan, how do we apply AI to get a very precise plan and then automating the imaging workflow? And there's, there's tons of other AI tools that we're looking at, but those are two big examples.
So where, where does this lead a novice going forward? What are these technologies evolve into? A lot of the other players in the space, they've got surgical robotic systems. I don't know if this is designed to offset that or if it's a completely different focus. And if that's a direction that you maybe see this, you. You leading. You see this leading you in that direction, or maybe this is something that's leading you and then possibly others into a completely different direction. Where are we headed? What's the future look for the company?
And from your perspective, orthopedics?
Yeah, I think as I think about the future. Right. ASCs are up there, right? Outpatient surgery. So we got to think about our products in the context of the ambulatory surgery center and even, quite frankly, in the hospital level, we're getting to the policy of site neutrality. So the reimbursement might look similar in inpatient versus outpatient. So we got to think about the economics of this. And, yeah, there's not going to be more money. Let's. Let's say that.
So let's just say it.
So we're really trying to cost. Optimize our products that are very specifically for the ASC environment. For instance, on Arvis, we've made our trackers and everything reusable that can be autoclaved. So we've really minimized the number of disposables that is required to use the system. And this dramatically reduces the operating costs of accessing technology. So not only is this system cost pretty low, but our disposables and operating costs are very, very low.
And if you look at say total cost of ownership of these devices, you look at typically system acquisition cost, any associated service contracts with that and your per case disposables over some term amortized by the number of cases. And so, you know, by saving three or four hundred dollars a joint, you know, in disposables, that math adds up significantly in your operating costs. So this is how we're thinking about. We've got a, let's, you know, maybe an over years term, but we want to democratize this technology in how we deploy it, but also allow us to scale it up very quickly because our costs are so low, we can deploy these things at scale.
And also the hospital isn't having unnecessary cost or the math gets a little easier for them.
Let's say I should have asked this up front. What does the system look like outside of the goggles, the VR headset, what's up? And around the surgeon, are there scanners, are there consoles that get moved around?
Yeah, there's really only instruments and then there's the device, there's no other cart or anything, it's just self contained 8 ounce thing that you wear. And the sensors are all in here. And then there's instruments which we have little trackers on. So there's a tracker that tracks say the position of the femur, position of the tibia. And then there's you know, instruments that we track where the cutting blocks and other, you know, instrumentation are. So when the surgeon looks at the surgical field, they'll see the trackers on the instruments and that's what they're, you know, that's what it's measuring basically in terms of the alignment and where things are.
So in a lot of the systems that you see on the market, you know, a lot of those little trackers are disposable and that adds a lot of cost to the procedure. So when we developed arves, it was really about just trying to get the economics to near zero as we can. So that essentially puts barriers up to adoption.
Great. Final question just again more broadly about ortho, what do you see this sector looking like in 10 years? We've seen a lot of movement over the past decade. What's the next time look like?
Yeah, it's interesting. So I think as you look at sensors and how they're evolving, I do think augmented reality is going to play a big role role and the devices will be miniaturized. The question is you see a lot of talk about smart tools and how can we embed kind of your traditional tools with intelligence that is assisted by a navigation system. So maybe you're not using a robotic arm, but you're using more tools that have some inherent measurement capability or intelligence built into them.
So I think that's a very exciting field. I also think from a planning perspective, we're going to get more patient specific plans. So I think the looking at the whole context of not just the imaging data, but say, the associated data with that particular patient, demographics, comorbidities, how they present in their pain will help us build models to really take an individual patient, prescribe a very specific treatment for them, whether it's a custom alignment or even, you know, particular implant design.
So there's a lot in, I would say the, you know, kind of, you know, taking a patient, prescribing what they. What we, what we think is the best thing for them in surgery. And then there's, you know, how do we deliver that surgery and what are the tools that we use to deliver that?
Fantastic. All right, well, it's an exciting industry. Getting more exciting every day because of tech lab like this. And thanks for taking the time to tell us about yours and for joining us on the podcast.
Thank you very much, Tom. It's a pleasure meeting you. I appreciate it.
All right, well, that is a wrap. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Ortho Innovation Talks podcast. Thank you to Regenity for sponsoring this episode and of course to our content partner, Enovis. We also appreciate you, our DeviceTalks podcast listeners. Make sure you're also a subscriber. Go to the DeviceTalks podcast network and any major podcast player and follow or like or subscribe whatever you do to make sure you don't miss a future episode of our DeviceTalks podcast.
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