Stryker’s Bone Growth Division Sold to Olympus Corp. Stryker Corp. has inked a deal to sell

Stryker’s Bone Growth Division Sold to Olympus Corp.

Stryker Corp. has inked a deal to sell its bone growth product franchise—the OP-1 product line—to the Olympus Corporation for $60 million. The product line was manufactured by Stryker’s Hopkinton, Mass.-based subsidiary Stryker Biotech LLC. The deal also includes the divestiture of the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based orthopedic giant’s manufacturing plant in Lebanon, N.H. The transaction has been cleared by the boards of both companies.

The OP-1 product line includes OP-1 Implant and OP-1 Putty for use in orthopedic bone applications such as lumbar spine fusion and the treatment of long bone fractures. The active ingredient in these products is the OP-1 bone growth factor that induces the formation of new bone when implanted.

OP-1 products currently are approved in the United States by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under a Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE), having provided treatment to roughly 40,000 patients globally. The HDE allows a medical device to be marketed whose effectiveness has not been fully proven and is intended to benefit patients with a rare disease or condition that afflict fewer than 4,000 U.S. patients annually.

In August, the company settled a lawsuit filed against its biotech division by the Massachusetts attorney general accusing it of illegally promoting the combination of a pair of its OP-1 products not approved by the FDA. Stryker paid $1.35 million to settle the suit.

With the sale of OP-1, Stryker officials said they plan to redirect a part of the related R&D spending to other internal projects, which they believe have the potential to deliver better returns.