ORTHO KINEMATICS RAISES $9.6 MILLION TO COMMERCIALIZE SPINE DIAGNOSTIC TOOL (Orthopedics This Week)
Privately owned, Ortho Kinematics, Inc. (OKI), has raised another $9.6 million in Series C equity financing to fund expanded commercialization for its VMA (Vertebral Motion Analysis) diagnostic tool.
An April 14, 2015 company announcement said the tool focuses on spine imaging informatics, “for the radiographic assessment of spinal motion and instability.”
“Gentle” Spine Bend
The company says that traditional “bending x-rays” of the spine often result in “guarded” responses from patients because of the pain of bending. VMA testing assists patients through a complete spine bend, helping to “gently overcome” that “guarding.” They claim the VMA helps to assure instability does not go undetected. Radiographic evidence of instability is a huge factor in a payer’s decision to cover a surgical intervention.
Since the early 1940s, spinal instability testing has been very low-tech. According to the company, today’s standard bending x-rays requires measuring spine motion from static x-rays by hand. The test is ordered 5 million times per year in the U.S., more than spine CT and MR imaging comb...
