Business & Technology Briefs (10/2007)

Investors in orthopedics traditionally have backed companies with technologies compelling enough to draw the interest of giants on the industry’s mountaintop—Medtronic Inc. ’s Medtronic Sofamor Danek , Johnson & Johnson ’s Depuy Spine Inc. , Synthes-Stratec ’s Synthes USA , Stryker Corp., and Zimmer Spine (a division of Zimmer Holdings Inc.’s Centerpulse AG)--controllers of 70% of the $4.3 billion US spine market. (See "The Hot Trend in Spine: Motion Preservation Mania," Medtech Insight, June 2007 Also see "The Hot Trend in Spine: Motion Preservation Mania" - Medtech Insight, 1 June, 2007..)

Last month, Clarus Ventures and a syndicate of private equity investors opted instead to invest heavily—unusually heavily for the orthopedics...