Cervical artificial disc

In 2006, Pioneer Surgical began a search for a cervical total disc replacement implant to develop and add to their product line. Pioneer’s first pursuit was to purchase a device well into the development process owned by a spinal implant company located on the East coast. Brian’s responsibility was to evaluate this company’s intellectual property portfolio related to this device to assure that it was sound and to perform other intellectual property related due diligence investigations on the company.

Pioneer also considered designing its own cervical disc replacement but the only design parameter at the time was that it must be a PEEK-on-PEEK (a biocompatible polymer) implant device.

Brian was charged with conceiving and illustrating several alternative PEEK-on-PEEK implants with novel locking mechanisms and to file a provisional patent application on these concepts. Brian had already studied the prior art and had a good understanding of what it contained. To avoid any conflict with the approaching audit of the intellectual property portfolio of the East coast company, the patent had to be filed within 10 days.

One of Brian’s embodiments in this patent application included a novel elongated shaft having a camming lobe. This lobe cut into the endplate upon rotation of the shaft to lock the implant within the intervertebral space. Neural damage could result if the implant broke loose from its surgically placed position.

Pioneer chose not to pursue the East Coast implant. Pioneer engineers instead developed a cervical disc replacement product called Nunec which utilized a robust rotary shaft and camming lobe design having outstanding locking features. Patent claims from Brian’s original cervical disc patent provide early protection for this device. The Pioneer device is expected to one day be responsible for $10M+ if not $100M+ in sales each year.