Medicrea , a company based in Neyron in the Lyon region, has drawn on specific special partnerships with some of the most creative surgeons in France, the UK and United States, to develop spinal fusion technologies. Each year, the company invests 15% of its turnover in R&D through the acquisition and filing of patents, through design, new materials and the prototyping of new implant generations.The global fusion implant market (thoraco-lumbar fixation, cervical fixations, intervertebral cage devices and bone replacements) is a huge one, worth $10 billion. "It is the fastest growing segment on the orthopaedic market, where it accounts for 20%", observes Denys Sournac, CEO of Médicrea. This market is driven, in particular, by population ageing, which has consequences such as bone degeneration. Of the 900,000 implant operations performed worldwide, 70% involve degenerative pathologies. The rest is divided between the treatment of major deformations (scoliosis) and injuries.UNiD, the latest implant from Médicrea includes a software solution application and a real time support team that enables surgeon to analyse and plan the operation. Each rod is available in two alloys (titanium or cobalt chromium) and is pre-contoured based on the pre-operative analysis of the patient. The first operation using UNiD was carried out by Vincent Fière at the Jean Mermoz hospital in Lyon, the leading French hospital specialised in diagnosing and operating spinal deformations. "During the operation, the rod moulded with the patient's spine and allowed me to carry out the precise surgical reduction that I had planned with the software for analysing patient x-rays a few days earlier", Fière explains. Thanks to the built-in Surgimap software application, Medicrea provides easy access and the possibility of immediately using the latest scientific data available on all the parameters of the sagittal alignment for each patient. Since this technology removes the need for manual bending of rods during surgery, operating time is significantly reduced, bringing down the rate of infection and raising the quality of patient recovery.The French group listed on the Alternext NYSE- Euronext Paris has its own implant and surgical instrument production plant in La Rochelle, in the South-West of France. Its first quarter 2014 turnover shows a ncrease in sales in the United States, its priority development market. In France, turnover for the period also jumped up with an increase in sales of over 36%, boosted by UNiD.