News
W Squared provides retained finance and accounting services to InVivoLink.
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May 21, 2010
Ryan Wells founded InVivoLink in 2009.
By April Wortham, Staff Writer
A surge in demand for total joint replacements is colliding with a virtual vacuum of information about the procedures and their effectiveness. Ryan Wells thinks he has the solution.
Wells is founder and CEO of InVivoLink LLC, a Nashville information technology company whose Web-based software captures data about how medical implants are used and shares it with doctors, hospitals and manufacturers.
"There's an overwhelming need for data," he said. "The manufacturers want it; the hospitals want it; the physicians want it. And, right now, they're relying heavily on a lot of anecdotal data sets."
InVivoLink has just more than 100 customers so far, a mix of orthopaedic physicians and device manufacturers. Wells said the company is "shoring up" the critical third link in the chain: hospitals.
The company also has secured both local and national private equity funding, though Wells would not disclose the amount. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, at least two private equity rounds have raised a combined $1.75 million, including $750,000 last month.
The ultimate goal is to create a first-of-its-kind national implant registry that records what types of procedures are being performed, who's performing them and what the outcomes are.
It's a much-needed resource, Wells said, that could further propel Nashville's growing subindustry of health care information technology companies.
Sweden has maintained an implant registry since 1979 and uses the data to improve surgical results, save time and cut costs. About 8 percent of hip replacement surgeries in Sweden are unsuccessful compared to 18 percent in the United States, Wells said. At $32,000 a surgery, that's an estimated cost to the U.S. health care system of up to $2 billion annually.
The idea of a joint registry intrigued Dr. Craig Morrison, a surgeon at Nashville-based Southern Joint Replacement Institute, which recently implemented the InVivoLink system. He said the system already is saving him time and money in surgery scheduling.
Last year, the four-physician group performed more than 1,700 joint replacement surgeries. Most of those were elective surgeries scheduled just a few weeks beforehand, Morrison said.
"Before, I would schedule the surgery, then call the (implant) vendor, then call the hospital," he said. "This way you do it in one step."
InVivoLink's first target is orthopaedic implants - Wells spent 13 years at manufacturer DePuy Orthopaedics before founding InVivoLink - though it plans to expand into devices for spine, trauma, cardiac and allograft tissue.
More than 700,000 total hip and knee replacements are performed each year in the United States, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Demand is expected to double in the next decade as baby boomers age.
Such statistics have allowed InVivoLink to attract a healthy list of private equity investors, including Rock Morphis, managing director at Nashville-based Heritage Capital Partners; Jim Sohr, CEO of Franklin-based AIM Healthcare Services; and Sandbox Industries, the Chicago-based fund manager for BlueCross BlueShield Venture Fund.
"InVivoLink ... helps bring the manufacturer, provider and hospital all together to provide a better product on a low-cost basis," Sohr said.
Wells declined to disclose InVivoLink's projected revenue but hinted at the market opportunity: 3,600 hospitals nationwide perform total joint replacements.
InVivoLink LLC
Executives: Ryan Wells, founder and CEO; Adel ElMessiry, chief technology officer; John Bass, chief operating officer
Address: 40 Burton Hills Blvd., Suite 220, Nashville 37215
Employees: 15
Product: Web-based software captures clinical and financial data before, during and after orthopaedic implant surgeries.
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W Squared provides retained finance and accounting services to InVivoLink.