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Orthocare Innovations Brings Prosthetics R&D, Manufacturing to Oklahoma

November as they pitched a proposal for $1.6 million in funding from the
state's $150 million EDGE Endowment fund.

Standing behind a podium in a board room of the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park Conference Center, the Orthocare Innovation's executives pledged to establish the company's headquarters in Oklahoma City, hire dozens of new employees and manufacture high-tech prosthetic devices here if they were granted the funding request.

Seated before them at a giant conference table were seven EDGE Policy Board members who silently considered Orthocare Innovation's proposal.

After hearing the pitch, Policy Board members questioned Orthocare Innovation's executives about details of the promised new jobs and high-tech prosthetic devices they said they would produce here.

Apparently, the board members liked what they heard. Before the day was over, Orthocare Innovations' was celebrating word that the EDGE board had awarded the full requested amount to the company. Its proposal was one of only five from among more than 90 original pre-proposals that received funding in the first ever EDGE Endowment Awards.

So, what has Orthocare Innovations done in the ensuing months since the EDGE funding was awarded? Exactly what it promised the EDGE board. The medical device R&D and product development company is adding new Oklahoma jobs, building out manufacturing space and gearing up to produce new computerized prosthetic devices.

"We are creating high-end, well-paying jobs here in the Research Park," McCormack said. "I think we are following through on our commitment to the state and to the EDGE Policy Board."

The company is preparing for a targeted July 1 move into nearly 15,000 square feet of space in the 840 Research Parkway building adjacent to its current Oklahoma City offices. That will nearly triple the amount of space it currently occupies in the park and, more importantly, serve as new corporate headquarters.

It will also use the space for R&D into new prosthetic devices, and manufacture its high-tech Compas^TM computerized prosthetic alignment system.

Employment is expected to grow at the location from approximately 20 when it is opened this summer to as many as 70 people.

"The EDGE funding is going to allow us to ramp up much, much more quickly than we would if not for that award," McCormack said.

"We really are doing what we said we would do," added Carol Sorrels, Orthocares Innovation's Director of Marketing and Communications. "It's exciting to have the support and the funding to do it."

In May, Orthocare Innovations announced a deal to acquire a key group from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The not-for-profit research laboratory has developed amazing technologies such as a prosthetic arm that can be controlled naturally by the wearer, providing sensory feedback and a level of control far beyond the current state of prosthetic limbs.

McCormack expects the deal to bring at least a dozen employees to the company as well as development work funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Orthocare Innovations was already involved in development work with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on a contract basis.

Orthocare Innovations made its entrance into Oklahoma in April 2008 when it bought Martin Bionics, an innovative prosthetic R&D company founded by Jay Martin. The Martin Bionics deal closely followed the purchase of a Seattle-based prosthetic device R&D company the previous October.

'What Orthocare Innovations has been able to accomplish since they acquired Martin Bionics has been astonishing," said Martin, who now serves as Orthocare Innovation's Director of Technical Services. "Orthocare Innovations will continue to shape the field of prosthetics nationally and internationally.

This is the beginning of what is to become a foundational time of change for the field of prosthetics."

Orthocare Innovations expansion turned what had been a small, Washington, D.C.-based prosthetic device business into a three-headed operation with R&D labs in both Seattle and Oklahoma City. McCormack maintained administrative offices in Washington.

McCormack and Doug Wallace, the company's Chief Operating Officer, will still operate out of the Washington office, but will fly to Oklahoma City every other week. David Boone, a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, continues to maintain the company's Seattle presence.

Other key executives will operate out of the company's Oklahoma City headquarters.

In fact, since the EDGE award was announced Orthocare Innovation's has added top level executives to its Oklahoma staff, including Oklahoma native Cindy Thompson as director of finance and administration. It also recruited MIT graduate and California native Michael Markmiller to Oklahoma to serve as its Director of Engineering.

"EDGE is allowing us to get those anchor folks in place," McCormack said. "We are getting directors with very significant industry experience, and they are going to be empowered to build out their own teams as opposed to hiring the lower level folks first."

In Markmiller, Orthocare Innovations added a systems engineer with 13 years of experience in the aerospace industry. He served in senior engineering capacities with Hughes Electronics, Boeing and Raytheon but chose to bring his wife and three children to Oklahoma to work in prosthetics development.

Markmiller said he has always been interested in assistive technologies and was drawn to Orthocare  Innovations by the "great technologies" under development here.

"What I'm hoping to bring to the equation is a disciplined engineering approach to product development," Markmiller said. "We have some great research going on. We need to translate that to marketable products.

"I want to help the team here turn some of their great ideas into mature designs that we can get out into people's hands and start making a difference in people's lives."

Orthocare Innovation's impressive lineup of R&D projects include computerized devices such as the Compas^TM system, miniature hydraulic systems that power limb movement and advanced materials to create cooler, cleaner more comfortable interfaces between the patient and the prosthetic device.

The company is working in partnership with the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee to develop some of the prosthetic technologies.

"That has been a very beneficial partnership for us," McCormack said. "We're actually funding some work they are doing on our behalf. We are looking at a whole family of products not only on the prosthetic side but the orthotic side, as well - advanced bracing utilizing these technologies to helpaugment activity or motion."

Orthocare Innovations has accomplished its rapid growth without any outside investment, McCormack said. It has used investment capital from company insiders, awards from OCAST, the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, as well as direct contracts for work in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University Physics Laboratory and sales of its StepWatch™ product to fund operations.

But McCormack also attributes Orthocare Innovation's growth to support from a host of Oklahoma entities that include the Presbyterian Health Foundation, OCAST, i2E, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Agency, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Mick Cornett.

"Folks have bent over backward to help us," he said. "Now it's our obligation to follow through on what we said we would do. We feel a very strong obligation to follow through on what we proposed that we can do. Now is the time to execute, and we are executing."

Orthocare Innovations Compas™ Points Prosthetics in New Direction

The first product that Orthocare Innovations will manufacture at its new Oklahoma City headquarters is a computerized prosthetic alignment system known as Compas™.

It is a hardware and software system that measures the gate and alignment of a prosthetic wearer and allows prosthetists to make quick, precise adjustments and improve the ability to walk naturally.

Compas™ works in tandem with the "Smart Pyramid" device that is embedded near the base of the prosthetic socket and records the angle of the foot and leg as the patient walks."

This is next-generation technology that we will be producing here" said Doug McCormack, Orthocare Innovation's co-founder and CEO. "It tells you exactly what adjustments to make, takes the guesswork out of alignment; it makes it objective and substantiated."

Developed by David Boone, Orthocare Innovation's Seattle-based chief technology officer, the Compas™ and Smart Pyramid System™have been well received by prosthetic professionals nationwide. It's just the type of technology envisioned by the EDGE Policy Board when it awarded $1.6 million in EDGE Endowment funding to Orthocare Innovations last November. Orthocare Innovations was one of the first five companies that won funding from the state's $150 million EDGE Endowment Fund.

"It's right in line with the EDGE proposal," said Carol Sorrels, Orthocare Innovation's Director of Marketing and Communications. "We said that if you give us this money we will manufacture here and hire people to do it. And we're doing it, just like that."

Orthocare Innovation's executives hope the Compas™system becomes ubiquitous among wearers of lower-leg prosthetic devices. It will add about $1,500 to the typical cost of $35,000 to $40,000 for a high-tech prosthetic leg.

"We want this to become a standard that is used by patients and practitioners across the board," McCormack said. "Once we get (insurance) reimbursement, we can envision where we are producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 units a year."

Compas™ systems will be assembled, packaged and shipped out of Building 840 in the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park. Up to 70 people ultimately will be employed in the company's Oklahoma City corporate offices.

"Prosthetists across the nation are responding to this in an overwhelming positive way," Sorrels said of the Compas™ system. "This is the future, and it is way, way cool."