Medtronic Spine vs Nuvasive

hahahah This is all really funny, I am a spine surgeon and just came upon this thread in a search about lateral access complications. I think I can settle all of this as a very busy lateral access advocate that uses both XLIF and DLIF approches. I hate to say it but any procedure is only as good as the surgeon. Any monitoring, either Nuvasives or MDT's is only a tool to be used by the surgeon to augment his senses. Either system has many faults, and in an in experienced or crappy surgeons hands will only cause problems.

But even funny was that complete lack of concern that most of you have for the patient! if I find that any of you are my rep, either for Medtronic or Nuvasive, I would sit you in the corner until you learned how to behave.

 

By chance does your Danek rep pay you a hefty consulting agreement in exchange for that business? In my territory all of Danek's business is bought and paid for, wrapped up in a nice little ribbon...

 

many docs make more from the implant companies than their pactice brings in or.....ok,ok,ok,....if not more a substantial amount to add to their practice.

Docs don't post here or look at this.

If they do they are hunting for money to begin with.

ALL READERS TAKE THIS TO HEART !!!

 

Since when did a fucking surgeon start giving a shit about patients. My experience is that they're only concerned about what luxury sedan they're going to purchase next or which company they're going to hit up for a little extra cash. Patient care is low on the list of priorities.

 

If you ask me guys...leave the monitoring to reputable monitoring companies with personel who know what they are doing. If you truely cared about the patients and not almightly dollar you would work on your intrumentation and leave this avenue alone. Who would you want in this capacity if it happened to be your son or daughter? or mother, father, best friend etc... a sales rep or someone board certified to do this testing as well as all other testing the patient needs for this type of surgery???

 

At Nuvasive's National Meeting all the sales individuals that were finally going to make the high income 300K Plus got their compensation slashed. The Big Wigs (huge stock options) at Nuva are more interested in cashing out their stock and making 1M Plus with each trade than creating a solid company. If I was you I would go with the 8000lbs Gorilla Danek and not play with the little boy Nuva. Outside of XLIF they have nothing. And the days of XLIF are ending. FAST! Plus their culture is a joke.

 

Metrx is absolute bullshit. and disposable metrx is bullshitX2. i can do that with my finger and a used toilet paper roll. But I will say, it is very well-marketed bullshit. More infuse anyone?

 

Nostradamanous

NuVasive (NUVA) Hit With Patent Suit. On 8/19, NUVA announced that it had been named a defendant in a patent suit by MDT; NUVA stated that it had received no prior warning of the complaint and noted that most products under the claim have been on the market for several years. The case is 3:08-cv-01512-LAB-AJB in U.S. District Court for Southern CA; MDT claims 12 of its patents are infringed by the following NUVA products: CoRoent XL, Gradient, MaXcess, SpheRx Guide Assembly, SpheRx DBR, SpheRx DBR Guide, and Helix. NUVA stated its intent to defend itself and hinted it might file a countersuit using its own patent portfolio.

 

This has been an interesting read.

You sound like a group of high school jocks from opposing teams.

Be more professional.

The lateral approach is a reasonable option, but not quite perfected.

The spine world is a very small one.
Watch what you say. It can come back on you.

Regards,

One of your customers

 

I believe I know who you are.
You have said this same thing about the "luxury sedan" in conversations berfore.
Poor form.
Your days with this company are numbered.

 

Oooohhh I'm scurred.

 

Really?? And why would you think I work for this company?

 

I am sure you are...

See you at NASS.

 

From someone who is not involved in either side of the coin of spine hardware and implants, and works for one of the largest Neuro-monitoring companies in the country, I can tell you right now that Nuvasive is the laughing stock of the field.

It is really unfortunate that they are putting completely inexperienced people behind a machine that is providing patient care.

They blind the surgeons with $$$$ from professional interpretation billing fees, and make scrub techs or PAs place the horrible sticky pads that ARE NOT the industry standard.

I can guarantee you when there is a bad outcome from a false negative the Nuvasive rep will be the first one to point fingers at the surgeon (since its a SURGEON DIRECTED system) and/or the person who they coheresed and slid them $50 to put on the sticky pads.

I have seen Nuvasive "techs" in action and I have unfortunately seen what they bill for their "MEP Kits", and I can understand why Hospitals and Insurance companies rape the accounts the way they do.

I have also had the opportunity to discuss Neuromonitoring with someone who was a Nuvasive "tech", the lack of BASIC neuromonitoring principles, anatomy, and electronics was frightening. I truly feel horrible for any patient who has a surgeon relying on Nuvasive for quality monitoring. I have no information nor do I care about their implants, or any other companies implants.

When you are a neuromonitoring tech/clinician, that is what you are, you shouldn't be selling hardware/implants/or concerned with anything else other than patient care and the data streaming to your machine.

The surgeon's will catch on and unfortunately, it will probably be through a stream of false negatives coming through their clinic for radiculopathy, or when the patient awakes in PACU with a deficit...god help the patient and their families.

 

to answer the original question, both companies will offer a great QOL, get in where you can, and avoid signing a non-compete unless there is significant compensation for doing so or an "out" clause or unless you work in a right-to-work state

to the idiots jarring back and forth, go learn more about your products and be a true asset and consultant to the surgeons / customers, their patients rely on you to know your shit

fastest growing spine company - there is no true way to track this without HSI data, which i am pretty confident neither of you have. that being said, Nuvasive went from ankle ache to ass ache in a short time which was impressive but also founded on all the existing technologies and work started at Danek. Nuvasive has produced nothing significant in the last year that could be deemed new technology. when a company gets large enough they grow and innovate through acquisition, no secret there. Stryker has some new products on the horizon good or bad has yet to be seen, Globus seems to be stuck, Synthes is steady and reliable, and several other start-ups have promising technologies for nucleus replacement and motion preservation technologies, etc etc etc. does it all really matter? we all have good jobs in an unfortunate but lucrative industry. we all know IP rules the spine world, every company is being sued, almost every surgeon is being sued. it will all get worse before it gets better, both for industry and the surgeon community.

to the surgeon who posted, i can only apologize for the banter from two of my medical sales colleagues regardless of what company they work for

 

Speaking of nucleus replacement -- who has the "best" and what about their time to market.

Dascor (disc dynamics)
Spinewave (NuCore)
Raymedica (this one looks pretty silly to me)
Spinal restoration

thanks

 

I have seen several companies offer lateral options. Obviuosly XLIF launched the concept of this approach. Pioneer Surgical and Medtronic have lateral approaches. Does anyone know of any other companies and devices that have lateral approaches? Eventually, they will all be our competitors. I heard Theken Spine (now Integra Life Sciences) has a new anterior approach implant with lateral option.

 

synthese spine also

 

the nuvasive system also has the option of needle leads and yes the surgeon puts them in. Not really all that difficult.

 

Anybody here like to do it laterally?