Tiger BufordYour Orthopedic Industry Expert (free today)

The Bone Factory - how surgeons can turn an idea into a viable product or company.

17 Feb 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:33

Tiger Buford describes the Bone Factory, a surgeon-led innovation pipeline that assembles virtual teams to rapidly prototype medical device ideas. The process evaluates regulatory feasibility, technology viability, and market potential, then either spins out a company or tells the surgeon candidly the idea won't work. Four projects are active, three in foot and ankle.

Chapters

And the big companies, the bottom line is the big companies are terrible at innovation. That's why they just, they do acquisitions. They don't do R&D anymore. And so, but they, when the surgeon brings an idea, they don't care about the surgeon's idea. They want the surgeon's business. And so they lead the surgeon along, put them in their business development portfolio, and nothing ever happened. And so I just wrote an article about this. 3 months ago, I think, called a concept called the Bone Factory, where surgeon can bring their idea in. We immediately put together a virtual team. We try to understand the idea, have the surgeon put a little bit of prototype money behind it, and get to a working prototype as fast and as cheap as possible. And, and if it looks like it's all green lights, you know, regulatory check, technology works, it's, you know, ASP, everything, then we'll spin out a company. We literally spin out a company and, uh, match some funding with it. If it's red lights, we just say, sorry, you know, this isn't going to work. And so we got 4 going on right now. We've got, uh, 3 out of 4 foot and ankle. Um, and we told one of them, great idea, this, this business will never work. You'll never, you'll never be profitable. And we just said, your baby's ugly, have a nice day. And the surgeon appreciated that.