Once upon a time (specifically 2004) there were two spine companies in the greater San Diego area: one, NuVasive, Inc., had just gone public and was north and slightly east of downtown San Diego; the second, Alphatec Spine, Inc., was privately owned and headquartered in a charming seaside community north of San Diego named Carlsbad.
Two companies, roughly the same size and geography, but about to have very different journeys.
Alphatec could rightly be termed a “meat and potatoes” supplier of spinal implants and instruments. NuVasive, by contrast, was driving innovative technologies such as nerve monitoring and the assembly of a lateral approach to spine surgery and fusion.
In fact, NuVasive’s senior leadership—Alex Lukianov, Keith Valentine and Pat Miles—selected the Cheetah to represent NuVasive’s commitment to innovation and customer responsiveness.
By 2006, NuVasive’s annual revenue was $98 million, with $48 million in annual losses. Alphatec reported revenue of $74 million, with a $29 million loss.
By 2013, NuVasive’s sales had cleared $685 million, and CEO Lukianov told Wall Street that the company would soon hit $1 billion in annual revenue (which it did in 2017). By contrast, Alphatec reported $204 million.
The following year, 2014, would prove to be Alphatec’s high-water mark. By 2016 the company was nearly insolvent, necessitating the sale of its international operations to Globus Medical, Inc.
But the world of spine and business is nothing if not dynamic. Beginning in 2015, the NuVasive senior leadership team migrated to other opportunities. Lukianov is now mentoring and investing in a series of exciting young companies and serving on the board of Orthofix Medical. Valentine is CEO of SeaSpine, Inc., another San Diego area spine company.
And Miles? He left NuVasive in October 2017 to become Chairman and CEO of…Alphatec.
