Zimmer spine is definitely up to something. They are looking for a new VP of Sales ( again), have replaced their entire upper level management team including R&D, President and Operations people and Group preseident in the last 18 months. As of two weeks ago I heard there will be considerable investments made in spine by Zimmer - not sure i believe this- but it all spells "change" to anyone who's been around this business for a while. With the J&J acquisition of Synthes, the market is going to shift a bit- there will be two LARGE players in the market now and a LOT of very small ones. Zimmer is 7-8th in market position and falling, but their margins are huge on what they do sell, so I wouldn't see them selling this or shutting it down anytime soon. They can bleed a lot of cash out of this turd for many years even with a 10 year old BAK cage and tribecular metal that's way over-priced ( this is a great product though).
Buying another player might be an option - and frankly it may be the only option if they want to remain in the space and grow, but even if they went after Globus or Nuvasive which are the inly two reasonably sized companies that are growing significantly, it would inly move them into a possible 3-4 market share player.
Developing some sort of leap-frog technology is very expensive and they haven't spent ANYTHING in years or release any significant developments- no lateral, no kyphoplasty, no disk, no changes in percutanious or MIS systems....
I will be very curious to see where they go, but it won't suprise me if they do nothing and just fade away.
