Nexus Spine Appoints Steve Cichy as Vice President of Sales

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nexus Spine, a developer of biomechanically-advanced solutions for spinal pathologies, today announced the appointment of Steve Cichy as Vice President of Sales. Mr. Cichy joins the company’s leadership team that also recently added Andrew Shepherd as Vice President of Marketing and Dave Ivanko as Vice President of Quality Engineering and Manufacturing as part of its strategy to accelerate commercialization of its novel compliant mechanism-based systems. The company’s product portfolio consists of PressON™ fixation, Tranquil™ interbody fusion, and several technologies currently in development.

Mr. Cichy is a highly accomplished sales executive with more than 25 years of experience in the spinal implant industry. He held various sales leadership roles in companies of all sizes prior to Nexus, including Sulzer Spine-Tech, Oratec Interventions, Stryker Spine, and Anulex Technologies. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President of Sales for Titan Spine where he was responsible for driving annual revenues from $1.2M to $70M prior to the company’s acquisition by Medtronic.

“Steve is joining Nexus at a very exciting time for our organization,” David Hawkes, President of Nexus Spine, commented. “We have reached an inflection point as we move from proof-of-concept to full commercialization of our PressON™ fixation and Tranquil™ interbody technologies and prepare to launch several new systems later this year. Steve is ideally suited to help us navigate this transition given his history of generating exponential and consistent revenue growth from early-stage to maturity. I am elated to welcome Steve to our team.”

Mr. Cichy commented, “The opportunity to join an organization with unique and innovative products that have been clinically vetted and validated for quite some time yet is still in startup mode does not come along very often. I am grateful to be able to help Nexus scale its biomechanical and compliant mechanism expertise into wide adoption of its posterior fixation and interbody offerings.”

About Compliant Mechanisms

Compliant mechanisms mimic nature by providing motion and force transmission through flexibility rather than from traditional rigid-body joints. This breakthrough enables bio-friendly synthetic materials such as titanium to perform more like surgically treated tissues at the macro and microscopic levels. This approach utilizes modern mathematical modeling, 3D finite elemental analysis, and 3D printing to drastically improve the way that spinal implants perform. Nexus compliant mechanism-based devices have been implanted in patients since 2015 and have been found to result in faster healing with less pain.

About PressON™ Spinal Fixation System

PressON™ is a unique pedicle screw-based spinal fixation system that features rods that are snapped on to screw heads instead of tightened using traditional set screws, which are prone to loosening and subsequent construct instability.¹ PressON™ employs compliant mechanism technology to match the patient’s specific anatomical needs, eliminating spinal rod-bending and other painful persuasion techniques currently used in spinal surgeries. Additionally, PressON™ is substantially faster and easier to implant and is roughly one quarter the volume of competitive devices, thus decreasing soft tissue irritation, decreasing incision length, and further reducing postoperative pain and recovery time.²

About Tranquil™ Interbody Fusion Technology

Tranquil™ is a flexible interbody fusion device made of bio-friendly titanium that is shaped and engineered using compliant mechanism principals to behave like spinal trabecular bone by mimicking its stiffness, resulting in a device that is 1/10^th the stiffness of traditional competitive interbody fusion implants. Tranquil™ is available in cervical, ALIF, PLIF, TLIF, steerable TLIF, and DLIF configurations.

About Nexus Spine

Nexus Spine develops industry-leading spinal implants by leveraging our novel compliant mechanism engineering expertise. Our innovative and evidence-based approach continues to advance the standard of surgical technologies through a rigorous focus on improving clinical outcomes while being easier to implant. Our proprietary spinal fusion systems minimize implant bulk, surgery time, and hospital handling and provide surgeons maximum versatility to accommodate varying patient needs. We are wholly owned by Crocker Ventures, an independent, privately-held life science, healthcare and technology investment firm. For more information on Nexus Spine, Tranquil™ and PressON™, please visit: www.nexusspine.com.

¹ Serhan, H., Hammerberg, K., O’Neil, M., Sturm, P., Mardjetko, S., & Crawford, A. (2010). Intraoperative Techniques to Reduce the Potential of Set-screw Loosening in Long Spinal Constructs. Journal of Spinal Disorders & Techniques, 23(7), e31–e36. https://doi.org/10.1097/BSD.0b013e3181c982a1

² Tian, F., Tu, L.-Y., Gu, W.-F., Zhang, E.-F., Wang, Z.-B., Chu, G., Ka, H., & Zhao, J. (2018). Percutaneous versus open pedicle screw instrumentation in treatment of thoracic and lumbar spine fractures. Medicine, 97(41), e12535. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000012535

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