OLYMPUS HALTS OP-1 EFFORT (Orthopedics This Week)
Olympus Biotech Corporation has put a fork into its efforts to commercialize OP-1.
After paying $60 million to Stryker Corporation in 2010 for the biologic product that has snake-bitten everyone who has attempted to commercialize the protein, Olympus announced on June 18, 2014 that it will close its 120-employee manufacturing plant in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, because it has been unable to find a buyer for the past four months.
OP-1 was a disaster for Stryker as the company failed to get FDA approval for the product, paid millions in fines for the way it marketed the product and several former employees received jail time for lying about those marketing practices. It was an albatross around former Stryker CEO Steve MacMillan’s neck when Olympus Biotech came along to try and breathe life into the product.
The product was even part of a U.S. Senate investigation as Senator Chuck Grassley tried to exercise his uninformed medical clinical judgment by saying that OP-1 could have been used as a substitute for Infuse in a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota.
Olympus Corp: Cameras to Bio
Olympus Biotech was formed four years ag...
