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New Additions to Help Orthocare Innovations in Medicare Approval Process

By Brian Brus

OKLAHOMA CITY- The addition of three new medical and scientific advisers will let Orthocare innovations move its prosthetic and orthotic technology to market that much faster, and likely help that company attract more venture capital, Chief Executive Doug McCormack said Monday.

Bringing doctors Doran Edwards and Kenneth Nelson to Orthocare Innovations is significant because both men are intimately familiar with the medicare approval process, McCormack said. Edwards and Nelson are formerly medicare directors to SADMERC, the Statistical Durable Medical Equiptment Regional Carrier.

SADMERC is under contract to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide services including the determination of appropriate codes under the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System for durable medical equiptment claims. That might sound a little arcane to an outsider, but those codes are invaluable in the medical technology commercialization process.

'The greatest risk asociated with developing a business in the orthodic and prosthetic industry is not achieving FDA approval as it would be with the pharmaceutical company,' McCormack said. 'The biggest challenge we have with new innovations and products that are not similar to other products already on the market is getting Medicare approval for reimbursement.'

McCormack said Edwards and Nelson will help Orthocare Innovations navigate that process and ensure that we are as well-positioned as possible.' And that, in turn, will make potential investors more comfortable, he said.

The third new Orthocare Innovation's adviser, Stuart Harshbarger, currently is the program manager and systems integrator for the $70-million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

McCormack described the DARPA work as possibly the most ambitious domestic prosthetic research and development initiative in decades.

'It has been a pleasure working with Stuart and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins...We currently are doing a considerable amount of work with his lab on some large Department of defense prosthetic research and development contracts,' McCormack said.

'What Stuart offers us is access to some very large research initiatives that go beyond the scope of any private company, or certainly any early stage company,' he said.

'The kinds of initiatives he leads are in the $100 million range. So for us to have this input and guidance and direct commercial relationship with the lab at Johns Hopkins creates very significant opportunities.'

The Oklahoma City company founded less than two year ago, recently was named one of five technology-based companies approved for more than $11 million in awards through the EDGE policy board. The awards come from the earnings of a $150 million endowment approved by the state Legislature in 2003 that established EDGE, or Economic Development Generating Excellence Board.

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