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Wright Medical Group, Inc. Announces Supply and Distribution Agreement for FUSIONFLEXa" Bone Matrix

^{Published on 2011-01-10 14:11:11 - Market Wire}
 

ARLINGTON, Tenn.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Wright Medical Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: WMGI), a global orthopaedic medical device company, today announced a supply and distribution agreement with AlloSource for FUSIONFLEXa" Bone Matrix, a unique bone repair scaffold for use in primary fusion procedures of the foot and ankle, as well as other orthopaedic bone grafting applications.

"It makes sense to utilize a graft that conforms to the site and that generates the necessary intimate bone-to-bone contact."

FUSIONFLEXa" graft is a flexible cancellous scaffold that acts as a carrier and matrix for new bone repair. It offers the foot and ankle surgeon intraoperative flexibility to graft prepared fusion sites, provide carrying capacity for bone marrow aspirate, and create a matrix that will intimately conform to the fusion site.

aPrepared fusion sites in the foot and ankle are never quite perfect,a said Dr. Chris Hyer, foot and ankle surgeon in Columbus, Ohio. aIt makes sense to utilize a graft that conforms to the site and that generates the necessary intimate bone-to-bone contact.a

Rick Swaim, Director of Biologics Marketing with Wright adds, aThe fact that FUSIONFLEXa" graft fills that need, can also carry bone marrow, and is relatively low cost will allow utilization of this graft for many fusion procedures in an outpatient setting.a

aFor more than 10 years, Wright Medical has been an integral partner in safely delivering life-saving and life-enhancing allograft products to surgeons for use on the patients that need them,a said Kevin Cmunt, AlloSource Executive Vice President. aWe look forward to collaborating on the FUSIONFLEXa" graft and offering a new solution to the challenges of bone grafting.a

With this distribution agreement for FUSIONFLEXa" graft, Wright and AlloSource further expand their long-standing relationship in the human tissue/DBM arena. Full commercial launch for FUSIONFLEXa" is planned for the first half of 2011.

FUSIONFLEXa" Bone Matrix will be made available in the U.S. and select international markets through Wright's direct and distributor-based sales force. The FUSIONFLEXa" graft is the latest addition to Wright's Biologics franchise, which includes products such as XPANSION®Micrografting System, PRO-DENSE® Injectable Regenerative Graft, PRO-STIM® Injectable Inductive Graft, GRAFTJACKET® Regenerative Tissue Matrix, OSTEOSET® T Medicated Bone Graft (not available in the U.S.), and the ALLOPURE® line of foot and ankle bone wedges.

Wright Medical Group, Inc. is a global orthopaedic medical device company and a leading provider of surgical solutions for the foot and ankle market. The Company specializes in the design, manufacture and marketing of devices and biologic products for extremity, hip and knee repair and reconstruction. The Company has been in business for more than 50 years and markets its products in over 60 countries worldwide. For more information about Wright Medical, visit the Companya™s website at [ www.wmt.com ].

This press release contains aforward-looking statementsa as defined under U.S. federal securities laws.These statements reflect managementa™s current knowledge, assumptions, beliefs, estimates, and expectations and express managementa™s current views of future performance, results, and trends and may be identified by their use of terms such as aanticipate,a abelieve,a acould,a aestimate,a aexpect,a aintend,a amay,a aplan,a apredict,a aproject,a awill,a and other similar terms.Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from those described in the forward-looking statements.Such risks and uncertainties include the impact of Wright's settlement of the federal investigation into Wright's consulting arrangements with orthopaedic surgeons relating to its hip and knee products in the United States, including Wright's compliance with a Deferred Prosecution Agreement through September2011 and a Corporate Integrity Agreement through September2015, and those risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (including those described in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, under the heading, aRisk Factorsa and in Item 1A of Part II of our 10-Qs filed during 2010).Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.Such statements are made as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements after this date.