When physicians do minimally invasive surgery to correct back problems, they usually use manual, stainless steel instruments to prepare the vertebrae for procedures. But even the best surgeons can’t remove all the necessary tissue utilizing available tools, which can lead to failed spinal fusions or other problems.
Christine Horton and Britt Norton knew they could create a better way. After being laid off from positions at a spine-centric medical device company, the pair decided to use their ingenuity and 42 years of med-tech experience to develop an automated surgical device for spinal procedures. They launched CoreSpine Technologies in 2005.
Sketching out their ideas on coffee shop napkins, Norton and Horton designed a device for minimally invasive surgeries where doctors are operating “blind.” The tool removes spinal nucleus or cartilage so surgeons can implant an artificial disc nucleus or do a spinal fusion. “The analogy we use is when you go to paint a wall you have to strip the wallpaper and sand off the glue—all the gross stuff no one likes to do. But if you don’t do it right you end up with a mess,” Horton says. “It’s the same thing with cardiac or spinal surgery.”
This year, the partners honed the device with input from the company’s medical advisors, and then started moving it through the FDA approval process. They intend to bring CoreSpine’s first device to market next year and get it into operating rooms for some of the 100,000 minimally invasive back surgeries performed annually in the United States. This year CoreSpine attracted an acquisition offer and outside financing, proving the strength of these entrepreneurs’ ideas and technology.
