SpineGuard Hires U.S. Marketing Director

SpineGuard has named Kris Kumar as U.S. marketing director.

Kumar brings to the Paris, France and San Francisco, Calif.-based firm a 20-year career with Zimmer Holdings Inc., Synthes (now part of DePuy), DePuy, and Kyphon (now Medtronic Inc.). He has held increasing responsibilities from product development engineering to product management, sales management and marketing leadership.

“With the appointment of Kris, we are strengthening our U.S. team and marketing capabilities to further drive the adoption of PediGuard in pedicle screw placement and expand our bone-monitoring platform toward new applications. Kris’ hands-on experience in developing and marketing new technologies in spine and general orthopedics will help us leverage our unique product offering, our burgeoning clinical evidence, and our network of key opinion leaders & teaching institutions,” said Pierre Jérôme, co-founder and CEO of SpineGuard.

Co-founded in 2009 by Jérôme and Stéphane Bette, former executives at Medtronic Sofamor-Danek and SpineVision, SpineGuard’s primary product is the PediGuard instrument, which is designed for safer screw placement during spine surgery.

Co-invented by Maurice Bourlion, Ph.D., Ciaran Bolger, M.D., Ph.D., and Alain Vanquaethem, a biomedical engineer, PediGuard is a handheld device that alerts surgeons to potential pedicular or vertebral breaches. Real-time feedback is provided via audio and visual signals.

The company reports that more than 30,000 procedures have been performed with PediGuard worldwide. According to figures cited by SpineGuard, several studies published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals have demonstrated that PediGuard detects 98 percent of pedicle breaches, presents an average screw placement accuracy of 97 percent (vs. 92 percent on average for navigation), provides three-fold fewer pedicle perforations than with free-hand technique and a three-fold reduction in neuro-monitoring alarms. It also limits radiation exposure by 25-30 percent and decreases the time for pedicle screw placement by 15 percent.

“I am very happy to join SpineGuard because its technology is unique in that it is not just an incremental improvement over existing technologies, but rather a radically new stand-alone technology,” Kumar said. “The PediGuard devices improve implant placement accuracy, while significantly decreasing radiation exposure for the surgeon, hospital staff and patient. Also, with the plethora of clinical evidence already generated, SpineGuard is well-positioned for significant growth.”