AxoGen, Stryker form partnership

Alachua-based AxoGen Inc.'s fast-growth mode has received a major boost with a distribution and marketing deal with Stryker Orthopaedics.

A year ago, AxoGen had seven employees. Its nerve repair technology was first inserted in a patient at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in July. In December, the company announced it had secured $12 million in investments and is now up to about 35 employees.

With the Stryker deal, AxoGen now has a relationship with a sales force for the ninth largest medical technology company with more than $5 billion in annual sales, in addition to its own sales force.

"It means that we can extend our reach quite considerably," said vice president John Engels.

Peripheral nerve repair is a $1 billion worldwide market.

"We will penetrate a subset of that," he said.

AxoGen's Avance Nerve Graft technology prepares nerves from donors to repair diseased or damaged peripheral nerves to restore sensation and function.

That eliminates the need to take the nerve from another part of the patient, the current surgical standard that leaves the patient with a second surgical site and nerve damage to a less important part of the body like the leg.

Stryker wanted to expand into peripheral nerve repair technology and chose AxoGen's.