In the News

After winning one of Orthopedic This Week's "Best Spine Technologies of 2009" awards last fall, K2M has now also received a 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA) for its Serengeti Minimally Invasive Retractor System.

The Serengeti system features a flexible polymer retractor which is captured under the head of a cannulated screw and placed with the screw for secure, spine-based retraction. The company says the retractor provides simplified access to the hard to reach L5 - S1 levels, as well as rod introduction for multi-level complex posterior instrumentation procedures.

On April 8, K2M's President and CEO Eric Major said in a press release:

This achievement reflects K2M’s continued commitment to innovation and our ongoing goal to provide surgeons with new technologies to enhance patient care.  We strive to develop more efficient approaches to address spinal surgery through very small incisions.

The company's Chief Medical Officer, Chairman and Co-Founder, John Kostuik, M.D., is the former Chief of Spine Surgery at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The portfolio of the company's products includes: spinal stabilization systems, minimally invasive systems, motion preservation, annular repair, and nucleus replacement.

The MDEA entries are evaluated on their design and engineering features, use of materials, user-related functions, enhance benefits to the patient, and the ability of the product development team to overcome design and engineering challenges. The review was performed by a panel of third-party jurors with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine, and diagnostics.