Ortho Spine Partners' business model is new to us. Using complementary perspectives from device company and hospital purchasing sides as a team approach, they serve as hired strategists and executors for product commercialization and corporate activities. Orthopedics is a relationship-driven industry, and the modern sales process requires different relationships. OSP's leadership is betting that its surgeon, hospital, sales rep and device company contacts, as well as its out-of-the-box thinking, can be leveraged to provide small partnering companies with national scale typically not attainable by young companies.

DePuy Synthes announced the Anterior Advantage Matta Method in 1Q19. The namesake of the program, Joel Matta, M.D., is a surgeon at The Steadman Clinic, Co-founder and Chairman of the Anterior Hip Foundation and a pioneer of the anterior approach. He began using the anterior approach in the late '90s and has remained dedicated to the technique, noting that it results in tissue preservation and shorter recovery time. More than two decades later, he remains committed to teaching and advancing the anterior approach.

The proliferation of computer-assisted technology companies entering the joint replacement, spine and trauma markets indicates to us that industry believes there's room for product introduction and adoption in robotic- and navigation-based surgery. Here we highlight four of these companies-three new, one established but newly-restructured-and their very different intraoperative technologies.

In January, The Hip Society and The Knee Society in partnership signed an agreement to acquire Current Concepts in Joint Replacement. For nearly 40 years, CCJR has educated thousands of joint replacement surgeons around the world, giving them a platform to debate surgical techniques and discuss trending topics of the day-conversations that have advanced orthopedics. The bi-annual conference will hold its Spring Meeting from May 8-11 in Cleveland, Ohio, and is expected to host surgeons, device companies and contract manufacturers.

What is the size of the Japanese orthopedic market and its subsegments? What market forces should companies consider in 2019?What are the orthopedic technology buzzwords in Japan today?

Companies often treat the Japanese market as an afterthought-after they're established in the U.S. and Europe, they'll decide what it takes to enter Japan. But as the U.S. market shifts to value-based care and as hospitals consolidate suppliers, and as the EU implements the stricter Medical Device Regulation, the Japanese market may look more attractive.

Extremities, sports medicine, digital health and the hospital supply chain remain attractive areas for orthopaedic innovation, according to investors who spoke during this year's Musculoskeletal New Ventures Conference. This seems like a natural course, with extremities and sports medicine being high-growth segments of orthopaedics and innovations in digital health and supply chain routinely mentioned as solutions to complex industry challenges. The sentiment that we took away from the discussion was optimism about the number of investment opportunities available, and about orthopaedics as a whole.

The forthcoming EU Medical Device Regulation will impact your supply chain, both in manufacturing and distribution. You must talk with your partners now to ensure that you possess the information you need from themand they from youto meet regulatory requirements, your timeline for CE Market Approval and critical considerations for audits. Mike Wolf, Director of Solutions Delivery at Maetrics, outlines some talking points for you and your suppliers.

Zimmer Biomet and Apple have co-developed mymobility, an Apple Watch app designed to facilitate connection between hip and knee replacement patients and their surgical care teams. We believe that the announcement is indicative of forthcoming multi-industry digital health collaborations and products that will seek to shape orthopaedic care primarily in hip and knee recon.

The orthopaedic contract manufacturer market comprises hundreds of companies that serve orthopaedic device manufacturers and, in many cases, other contract manufacturers. We estimate that revenue for this market reached $5 billion in 2017, +7.6% or $360 million from 2016, as published in THE ORTHOPAEDIC INDUSTRY ANNUAL REPORT.