CEO

Q How was the company set up?

A Spineart was set up as an independent company 4 years ago by an expert team under the leadership of Jerome Levieux and myself. We manage the company (based in Geneva, Switzerland) together as co-CEOs. Spineart distributes in 24 countries, in 4 continents and will open a subsidiary in the U.S. this summer.

Q What is the company focus and what do you offer to the Spinal Surgery industry?

A Innovation, Simplicity and Safety.
Spineart combines the expertise of leading surgeons and the creativity of its team to craft a new breed of innovative and minimally invasive fusion and motion preservation devices. Spineart has also managed to drastically reduce the number of instruments to simplify the surgery and make it safer.

Q Who are your customers and what products/services do you offer them?

A We service an international array of leading spinal surgeons, and specialized distributors, providing them with a full range of innovative fusion and motion preservation implants.

Q What is your most popular product/service and why do you offer them?

A Our most popular product is the world’s first pre-assembled, MRI compatible, and shock absorbing cervical artificial disc, BAGUERA® C for its technical features, its ease of implantation, greatly reduced surgery time, and simplified set. The most important service that we render for our clients resides in the fact that we have allowed them to shorten their surgery times, simplifying it whilst making it safer, thanks to our advanced designs and the use of our compact and intuitive sets.

Q How do you keep up to date with changes in the market?

A Most importantly by being very reactive thanks to our short decision chain, but also by discussing with leading surgeons, attending trade fairs, exchanging information with financial analysts, meeting with investment bankers, and reading the specialized press/internet.

Q Do you have any new products coming soon?

A One of our main strengths is to be on top of innovation. We are leader of a new spinal generation due to our philosophy and also to our existing and coming range, which will clearly see Spineart emerge as the leader in Minimally Invasive Motion Preservation.

Q Do you foresee much expansion in the coming years?

A Our turnover has been growing at 100% per year over the last three years. We expect to continue our growth over the upcoming years, as well as maintaining our profitability which has been achieved since our second year.

Q How do you advertise your products?

A The spine market is a small world and word of mouth is our best support due to the quality and innovation of our products. Otherwise, publications, trade fairs, web site…

Q What makes you different from your competitors?

A Spineart is the leader of a new spinal generation with a proven ability to successfully commercialize pioneering implants on an international basis with a high-end branding, to simplify surgery by reducing the sets to a small number of intuitive instruments.

Q How successful have you been to date?

A We cover 85% of the spine pathologies, we have developed a profitable industrial project, established a strong high-end brand positioning, designed and marketed a full range of fusion and motion preservation implants, and built an international distribution network. In 4 years, over 85,000 of our products have been supplied in over 24 different countries. We have thus attained a 3% European market share, which includes a 10% market share in France.

Q How are you committed to quality?

A From day one, Spineart has created its own quality control department. Our complete product range is CE marked in accordance with 93/42/CEE directive following annex II and we’ve started 510k processes at the end of 2008 ; our pedicle screw range and our lumbar cages ranges including PLIF, TLIF and ALIF cages are already 510K cleared.

Our company is certified following organizational standard as ISO 9001:2000 and medical standard as ISO 13485:2003. Additionally, we actually manage improvement of our quality system to be in accordance with US 21 CFR part 829 SMQ regulation.

Q How important is good customer relations?

A Our customer relations are paramount. They are handled by our entire staff, not just from our experienced sales and marketing department, but also by every employee in the company, including the top management, our CFO, Jerome Ventura, and both CEOs, Jerome Levieux and myself.