Flower Orthopedics

CEOCFO-Members Login

October 14, 2013 Issue

The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information

INDEX  |  CONTACT  |   SERVICES  | HOME

Ready-for-Surgery™ Bone Fixation Concepts for Orthopedics

About Flower Orthopedics:

www.flowerortho.com

Founded in 2012, Flower Orthopedics creates new standards for Orthopedics by providing cost-effective, safe and efficient, Ready-for-Surgery™ bone fixation concepts. Our real-world innovations are redefining the protocols and standards for orthopedics. At Flower, we focus on cost savings while ensuring clinical excellence and deliver value by enabling a more efficient case.

 

For more information, visit Flower Orthopedics at www.FlowerOrtho.com.

Oliver Burckhardt
President and CEO


Oliver Burckhardt is president, CEO, founder and chairman of the board of Directors of Orthopedics. Oliver brings more than 20 years of industry experience to the management team of Flower Orthopedics. From April 2009 until April 2011 Oliver was the president and CEO of Scient’x SA, a company that was acquired by Alphatec Spine in March 2010. Oliver was formerly president of Orthofix Spine, Inc. where he was responsible for the Global Spine business units and revenues that exceeded US $100 million. Prior to Orthofix, he also worked with Aesculap, where he served as the vice president of Spine Sales and Marketing and played a key role in building the USA and international Aesculap spine business from the ground up.

“For us, a more efficient (surgical) case is overdue, and so we are the first company that can provide the necessary pieces to perform a case with almost a third less inventory in the surgery room. With McKesson we have access to a very significant sales force and logistic infrastructure that focuses on driving savings in the ambulatory surgery center space.”- Oliver Burckhardt


Healthcare

Surgery Applications

 

Flower Orthopedics
100 Witmer Road, Suite 280
Horsham, PA 19044

877.778.8587

www.flowerortho.com

 

 


 

Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – October 14, 2013
 

CEOCFO: Mr. Burckhardt, what is the concept at Flower Orthopedics?

Mr. Burckhardt: The concept is to standardize bone fixation to drive efficiencies and cost savings. That was the underlying idea when we started Flower Orthopedics. The concept is to have a box, we call it today the FlowerCube, that houses everything, disposable and ready-for surgery, needed to perform a bone plating surgery.

 

CEOCFO: What is bone fixation and how has it been handled up until now?

Mr. Burckhardt: Bone fixation refers to a stabilization of a fracture or reconstructed anatomy where a plate-screw construct is used to temporarily stabilize the anatomy until bone regeneration has occurred. Today, screw, plates and the related instruments are usually sent to the hospital in an unsterile fashion and sterilized by hospital staff before the surgical case. Then, after the case is finished, instruments and implants are cleaned and reprocessed again. Reprocessing of implants and instruments is a very cumbersome, time consuming, and labor intensive process with lots of inefficiencies and risks.

 

CEOCFO: What is the FlowerCube™?

Mr. Burckhardt: The FlowerCube is a box concept that houses all of the different implants and instruments that you need to perform a bone fixation surgery. All components in the Cube are sterile packaged individually and are ready for surgery, so you can simply take it off the shelf when you need it and head into surgery. It is all standardized, meaning there is minimal learning curve and the product is always accessible and ready when you need it. We have different Cubes for the different Flower Applications. For every Flower Application we have a predefined range of implants and respective instruments: standardized and Ready-for-Surgery.

 

CEOCFO: Was this a new concept? Have people tried to put it all together before and not been able to? It seems intuitive to me! It would be great to have everything sterilized and ready! What has been the holdup?

Mr. Burckhardt: The Flower concept is new and revolutionary. In the past the industry approached different indications independent of each other, and so could standardize neither the instrumentation nor the implant concept. However, standardization is the core principle of Flower Orthopedics; our approach is based on the idea that you can have one implant philosophy and one instrument philosophy for all available Applications. All is sterile packaged, ready for surgery, and reduced, from an inventory standpoint, to the minimum of what you need in that particular surgery. It is all focused to drive significant savings without compromising the clinical outcome.

 

CEOCFO: What were the biggest challenges in putting the concept together?

Mr. Burckhardt: The biggest challenge, besides the actual development of the plating system and the disposable instruments, was certainly to make sure we give the physician what he needs in surgery without sacrificing the Cube advantage. In other words, we had to make sure that the physician has what is needed in the FlowerCube for a successful surgery, but that components, usually present in unsterile sets, yet rarely used, are eliminated from the Cube. Sterile packaging and disposable instruments are important, but equally important is to have it presented in a logistic solution that fits into the framework of a surgery room in a hospital or an Ambulatory Surgery Center.

 

CEOCFO: Where are you in the rollout process?

Mr. Burckhardt: We launched the company and the first Flower Applications in the beginning of September 2013. Our Hand and Wrist Applications are available right now and we are in process of rolling out our Foot Application. The goal is to complete our portfolio over the next eighteen months and to be able to cover 85% of all bone fixation surgeries.

 

CEOCFO: How do you get attention?

Mr. Burckhardt: We are currently building a team of Flower Specialists that are supporting and working closely with our distribution partner McKesson. We will be present at tradeshows. We will work with social media and use specific educational events, hosted by hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, and physicians that have already changed over to the new Flower Surgery Concept.

 

CEOCFO: From talking with other people it seems pretty much a given that if McKesson is interested in you, you are going to do well. Do you have that same feeling or are there different levels of their promotion?

Mr. Burckhardt: For the Ambulatory Surgery Center space, I could not think of a better distribution partner. With McKesson we have access to a very significant sales force and logistic infrastructure that focuses on driving savings in the Ambulatory Surgery Center space. The bone fixation market is commoditizing and surgical standards are established. The new challenge is to optimize how logistic and inventory management for implants is handled. We believe that McKesson will be able to optimize the supply chain for implants, which again will translate into savings. The Flower concept is all about efficiencies to drive cost savings. Putting the two together seems to me like a good and natural fit.

 

CEOCFO: Is there anyone not looking for more efficiency these days?

Mr. Burckhardt: Everyone in healthcare is looking for efficiencies, and yet the industry’s implant concepts did not respond to meet that demand in the actual surgery rooms. Literally, the opposite is the case; the industry has added superfluous components into the bone-fixation-sets, not considering how that excessiveness impacts cost-savings for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, as though the regular product discounts are enough. Very impractical.

 

CEOCFO: Is this strictly in the U.S. today, or is there or will there be an international component?

Mr. Burckhardt: Right now we are only selling in the US. It makes sense for a startup to be extremely focused and to be successful in one country before moving on to other interesting marketplaces around the globe. Strategically, we are looking ahead into marketplaces in Asia Pacific. We have already initiated the Chinese registration and later in 2014 will also start commercializing our Flower Applications in the European Community.

 

CEOCFO: What happens now? Where are you doing your manufacturing? Are you able to gear up, should there be the kind of response the product deserves?

Mr. Burckhardt: One of our core shareholders is a precision manufacturing company in Germany. This relationship gives us access to a significant amount of manufacturing capacity. While we will be looking for second sourcing eventually and when the time is right, we feel that for now we are in an excellent position to execute our growth plans.

 

CEOCFO: Development and commercialization are always expensive ventures. Are you funded to continue? Will you be looking for funding between now and the ongoing use of your product?

Mr. Burckhardt: We closed two funding rounds over the last twelve months, which were necessary to finalize product and Cube concept. We have inventory on the shelf and have sold the first stocking orders. With the continued uptake of the revenue, we are financially well-positioned to execute our launch strategy.

 

CEOCFO: What, if any, challenges are you on the lookout for?

Mr. Burckhardt: The challenges ahead are twofold. The first challenge that I see is certainly adoption. Flower is a new way of supplying and delivering implants into the surgery setting—and it will be disruptive. This is something that people need to get used to. It will also require hospitals and surgery centers to change the way they order implants, and how these implants are delivered into the surgery room. Then of course, this is a highly competitive marketplace with very good, established companies. For a new company is it always challenging to break relationships between the sales force of these well-established companies and the physicians, hospitals, and Ambulatory Surgery Centers.

 

CEOCFO: What is next?

Mr. Burckhardt: As I said before, the completion of our portfolio, adding more Flower Applications, is a critical task for us. We have launched the Hand and Wrist Applications and will start with the roll out of the Foot Application very shortly. Over the course of the next few quarters we will launch four other applications that are all very exciting. All of them are based on our patented plating technology. Additionally, we are building a team of Flower Specialists and continue to mature our internal processes and structures.

 

CEOCFO: Why should Flower Orthopedics stand out for investors and people in the business community?

Mr. Burckhardt: Flower Orthopedics stands out because we are at the forefront of the new market segment. Patients deserve the best care possible. The challenge, however, will continue to be limited funds under the auspices of cost cutting to sustain profitability while providing the best possible patient care. For us, a more efficient (surgical) case is overdue, and so we are the first company that can provide the necessary pieces to perform a case with almost a third less inventory in the surgery room. Flower Orthopedic’s mission is to create a new generation of Ready-for-Surgery Implants and Instruments at a price point that respects the need for sustainable profitability.

disclaimers

Any reproduction or further distribution of this article without the express written consent of CEOCFOinterviews.com is prohibited.

 

 

 

Surgery Applications, Flower Orthopedics, Healthcare Companies, CEO Interviews 2013, Ready for Surgery Bone Fixation Concepts for Orthopedics, Surgery tools, FlowerCube, box that houses all of the different implants and instruments that you need to perform a bone fixation surgery, Recent CEO Interviews, Healthcare Stock, Medical Device Stocks, components in the Cube are sterile packaged individually and are ready for surgery, off the shelf tools for surgery, Flower Orthopedics Press Releases, News, Companies looking for venture capital, Angel Investors, private companies looking for investors, healthcare companies seeking investors, surgery applications companies needing investment capital

ceocfointerviews.com does not purchase or make
recommendation on stocks based on the interviews published.