L&K Biomed Signs Supply Contract with Kyocera... "Potential to Enter Japanese Market with Height-Expandable Cage"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] L&K BioMed announced on the 27th that its U.S. subsidiary, Aegis Spine, has signed a supply contract with Kyocera Medical Technology, the U.S. branch of the Japanese Kyocera Group.

The Kyocera Group began in 1959 as Kyoto Ceramic Co., Ltd., producing high-quality ceramics in Kyoto, Japan, and now has 257 companies in 40 countries worldwide. The total sales of the Kyocera Group in 2020 reached approximately 16 trillion KRW.

Kyocera has strengths in ceramic components used in smartphones and supplies many parts to major smartphone manufacturers such as Apple in the U.S. and Samsung in Korea. Additionally, excluding imported products, Kyocera leads the Japanese market in sales of spinal and joint medical devices.

The global market for implantable medical devices such as artificial joints is about 36 trillion KRW, with an expected annual growth rate of 5%. The U.S. is the largest market, accounting for 61% of this. Aiming for global market expansion, Kyocera Group established KMTI in California, U.S., in 2019 and aggressively expanded its medical device business by effectively acquiring the U.S. medical device company Renovis Surgical Technologies in March 2019.

KMTI noted that the trend in the spinal implant market is the height-expandable interbody fusion cage system (AccelFix Lumbar Interbody Fusion Cage System, hereafter ‘height-expandable cage’) and became interested in L&K BioMed’s products launched in the market.

KMTI will receive supplies from Aegis Spine, which sells L&K BioMed’s products, and start sales across two states, Oklahoma and Nebraska. The target product is L&K BioMed’s height-expandable cage with a posterior insertion method called 'Accelfix-XT.' They plan to gradually increase both the product range and sales regions in the future.

A company official stated, "Based on the pilot sales results in the two states, L&K BioMed and KMTI will enter into full-scale negotiations," adding, "Nothing has been decided yet, and both companies will proceed with open negotiations."

Meanwhile, L&K BioMed received U.S. FDA approval on September 16, 2019, for three types of height-expandable cages for lumbar use. Among them, the posterior insertion type height-expandable interbody fusion cage ‘AccelFix-XT’ has currently achieved about 600 surgical cases in the U.S. market. Additionally, the lateral insertion type height-expandable cage ‘AccelFix-XL’ and the anterolateral insertion type height-expandable cage ‘Accelfix-XTP’ are scheduled to be sold in the U.S. market this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.