HOUGHTON-Pioneer Surgical Technology, a medical device design, development, and manufacturing corporation based in Marquette, has signed a new product licensing agreement with Michigan Technological University for the development of a new anterior spinal fixation device.
Pioneer and Michigan Tech will share ownership of the patent for the device, which will be produced and marketed commercially by Pioneer, with royalties going to Michigan Tech. Company officials hope to have the device on the market in about two years.
"This device represents the latest surgical innovation for the reconstruction of the anterior spinal column after a person has had one or more vertebrae crushed by catastrophic injury such as might be sustained in an automobile collision," said Dr. Matthew Songer, who is a practicing surgeon and CEO of Pioneer. He said previous methods of reconstructing the anterior spinal column have involved either inserting a bone graft into the defect area to recreate the vertebral spacing or implanting a spacer cage between the vertebrae to accomplish the same result. But both methods experienced stabilizing complications which prompted researchers to seek other solutions.
The Pioneer/Michigan Tech device will allow surgeons to recreate the anterior spinal column spacing and at the same time stabilize the spinal column until the bone graft has had a chance to grow together with the spine. "Our patent search indicated nobody else had registered anything like this device," said Songer. He predicts the device will revolutionize the way physicians treat this type of spinal injury.
Songer said he came up with the concept for the new device but didn't have the laboratory to develop it so he contacted Dr. Gopal Jayaraman, head of Michigan Tech's bioengineering program, who assigned the project to graduate student Jeff Vlahos. Vlahos developed and tested the device and is now employed by Pioneer, where he is conducting additional tests.
Michigan Tech President Curt Tompkins said the project's success is a perfect example of how technology transfer should work. "We plan to continue to engage in this type of University-industry cooperation in the future," he said.