Elevation Spine
Redefining Cervical Spinal Fusion

Successful businesses are often built on ideas that plug a crucial gap in the industry. Most often, entrepreneurs stumble upon these gaps either from personal experience or something they hear in passing. For Charles Gilbride, president and CEO of Elevation Spine, the idea to start a medical devices company focused on spinal implants innovation emerged when he witnessed the lack of an alternative to traditional screw-based implants.
“Within the spinal sector is a $500 million sub-segment for standalone spacers or integrated fixation spacers. It is a highly commoditized space where most companies come out with similar screw-based designs. We wanted to change that status quo and take a more innovative and differentiated approach to designing spinal implants,” says Gilbride. Teaming up with a group of engineers to find a better way, Gilbride established Elevation Spine. Today, the firm designs multifunctional implants that rely on multiple fixation types and materials and offers surgeons far more options than just a simple screw-based design.
The unique fixation of Elevation Spine’s implants gives surgeons the ability to access hard-to-reach areas of the spine that are not feasible with the traditional screw-based implant. “At the same time, through our instrumentation design, we cut short the surgical steps and provide advantages in terms of increased speed, decreased anesthesia time, smaller incision size, and simplicity,” adds Gilbride.

Simple, Quick, and Easy Implantation

Within the cervical spine, there are numerous vertebral levels. It is easier for a surgeon to implant hardware in the middle of the cervical spine region. It is only higher up in the area—toward a patient’s head, lower toward their thoracic spine, or toward their chest—that the surgeon finds it challenging to implant hardware. To that end, Elevation Spine’s devices are designed to cover the entire cervical spine region seamlessly. Besides, unlike screw-based spine implants, the firm’s devices don’t require any angulation. “Surgeons can easily drop our fixations inside the implant instrument and deploy it in a patient’s cervical spine. It makes the implantation procedure simpler, quicker, and safer for patients,” mentions Gilbride. Besides, surgeons only have to make a small incision on the required part of the body to implant the device.

Surgeons can easily drop our fixations inside the implant instrument and deploy it in a patient’s cervical spine. It makes the implantation procedure simpler, quicker, and safer for patients

Elevation Spine’s crown jewel is the modular cervical fusion system, Saber-C, which comprises three components: a spacer, an anterior cervical plate, and fixation. The spacers come in various material types, including titanium, titanium-coated polyetheretherketone (PEEK), and allograft—a cathartic bone. “These spacers fit perfectly in our anterior cervical plate, offering a lot of versatility. Besides, the fixations—spikes and screws—are also preloaded into the inserter. This means surgeons don’t have to spend time putting together each of the components and can rather concentrate on implanting the device,” informs Gilbride. In short, Saber-C is a multifunctional, highly-versatile system that extends beyond what the current devices can offer.

Talking about the benefits of the solution, Gilbride adds, “I learned early in my career that every time a surgeon places an implant, they are introducing potential risk. With our device, the patient’s body only experiences one instrument passage in contrast to the typical four to five instrument passages.” In fact, surgeons now are reporting that they are able to implant Saber-C in 60 seconds. From a patient’s perspective, if they already have an existing fusion done, it can be extremely complicated to get a new implant within a level above or below the existing implant. With Saber-C, however, because of the angulation and the ability to go through the minimally invasive channel, surgeons can squeeze the product in between existing hardware and also place it in adjacent levels of the spine.

Fostering Continued Innovation

The effectiveness of Elevation Spine’s products can be further substantiated through its numerous client success stories. A case in point involves an orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Samuel Joseph, in Tampa, FL who is extremely experienced at using all surgical devices on the market. “We onboarded and performed a demo with him, after which the surgeon fully adopted our device into his practice. The ability to implant the device anywhere in between 45 to 60 seconds makes it very easy for Dr. Joseph to perform the surgical procedure in a very quick fashion,” asserts Gilbride.

Elevation Spine’s implant has not only improved the surgeon’s practice but also made it simple and efficient.

Elucidating the client onboarding process, Gilbride says, “It is very straightforward. Our team begins with carrying out a demo in the surgeon’s office. We then take them through the necessary steps on how to use the instruments.” Following this, Elevation Spine’s team also trains the surgical staff on handling and preparing the implants in the surgical room.

A Promising Future

While several factors play a critical role in the firm’s continued success, the founding team’s experience and expertise form the foundation of Elevation Spine. Prior to establishing Elevation Spine, Gilbride served as the VP of LDR spine, which had the largest market share in the standalone spacers sector. “It is where I experienced first-hand that when you have a technology that offers a significant benefit over the competition, you can have a pretty solid market share,” states Gilbride. In fact, Gilbride’s subject matter expertise in the spine domain and his long-standing experience in the medical device industry, helped lay the foundation for Elevation Spine and what the team has designed. While the company initially launched its product for the cervical spine region, the technology is also applicable to other spinal areas.

Elevation Spine’s plan for the future includes scaling the Saber-C technology for anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF), transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF), and lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF). “We plan on enhancing the implant to a larger size and scaling up the instrumentation of lumbar. We will take what we learned from the cervical experience and incorporate those improvements into lumbar—all based upon the same core technology,” asserts Gilbride.