Nexus-SpineNexus Spine today launched its PressOn patient-specific fixation system for stabilizing the human spine and its Tranquil flexible titanium device for interbody fusion.

The Tranquil and PressOn implants feature compliant mechanism technology to allow for well-established biocompatible materials like titanium to behave like organic human tissue on a microscopic level. The technology allows for bio-friendly synthetic materials to perform more like surgical-treated tissues.

Compliant mechanisms are designed to mimic nature by providing motion and force transmission through flexibility instead of traditional rigid-body joints.

“Nexus Spine has demonstrated improved clinical outcomes, decreased costs, and simplified use by leveraging our novel compliant mechanism engineering expertise and intellectual property. Our advanced technology products have been shown to decrease pain, speed healing, and reduce the cost of care,” president David Hawkes said in a news release. “Our proprietary devices reduce surgical time and provide surgeons maximum versatility to accommodate patient-specific needs, increasing the likelihood of long-term success for patients.”

Tranquil is a flexible, bone-replicating interbody device mode of bio-friendly titanium that is shared and engineered to mimic spinal bone with the same stiffness as the human spinal trabecular bone. Because of those features, the healing time of Tranquil implant patients is months faster than traditional spacers.

“Titanium has been used in orthopedic surgery for decades, with a stellar history. The key to better outcomes, however, is going further and getting titanium to act like spinal bone. Any spinal implant company can 3D print what is essentially a block of titanium with a fancy shape and a lot of little holes, and that is happening widely right now,” president of Crocker Ventures Gary Crocker said.

PressOn is a patient-specific spinal fixation system that eliminated spinal rod-bending and other painful persuasion techniques used in spinal surgeries. It exactly matches the share of complex spinal surgeries and can be installed in less time. It is designed to decrease soft tissue irritation and decrease incision to half the length to reduce postoperative pain and recovery time.

“Compliant mechanisms have made it possible for our engineers to get less metal to do more for patients,” Hawkes said. “Traditional rod systems require larger wounds and more tissue retraction and more surgical instruments, which lengthens the surgery, increases the likelihood of infections and causes pain. PressOn is patient-specific, eliminating rod-bending, rod-persuasion and painful unintended stresses. Furthermore, PressOn is smaller, faster, and stronger.”