Homegrown Global Leader in Biotech

Don’t feel left out if you don’t immediately know NuTech. For those of us not inside the orthopedic or spinal surgery worlds, it isn’t exactly a household name. Not yet, anyway. But NuTech is getting ready to change all that.

Touring their sprawling new facility off Rocky Ridge road, it is simply amazing that a world leader in orthopedics and biotechnology could be right here in Birmingham and not be on everybody’s mind. NuTech moved into their new home in June of 2010, and they have room to grow.

Featuring a state-of-the art 50-seat auditorium for educating surgeons, residents, and fellows, as well as a fully-functional mock operating theater, the new building also houses the storage and distribution center for products that are used (and loved by surgeons) all over the country.

Founder and CEO Ken Horton started NuTech from scratch, building on over two decades of sales and service experience, as well as time spent in operating rooms with surgeons all over Alabama. Recognizing a critical shortage of quality donor tissue, Horton began networking with tissue banks across the Southeast to meet the need. It wasn’t long before he was a major player in the tissue allograft business.

 

After NuTech was incorporated in 1994, Horton stayed on the cutting edge of orthopedic and sports medicine, acquiring pioneering technology that involved the use of amniotic tissue, including amniotic (not embryonic) stem cells. Now the products NuCel and NuShield, derived from donated placentas, are in the process of revolutionizing orthopedic and spinal surgery. NuTech also recently received a patent for a dowel-shaped allograft derived from donor bone (called NuFix), which is improving the success rates for spinal surgeries.

Sitting at a well-worn round oak desk in an upstairs conference room he jokingly calls his “war room,” Horton scrolls through fan email from surgeons across the country, who use NuTech products in surgeries in some very prestigious settings. One from a surgeon at Harvard Medical School brings a proud smile to the NuTech founder’s face. Ken Horton’s passion and excitement about his company and its future are impossible to miss. This building is an outgrowth of NuTech’s mission, designed specifically with that mission in mind, and emails like this one are sweet validation.

NuTech has earned a superb reputation with hospitals by providing excellent service at a reasonable cost. They have earned the admiration of surgeons by catering to their needs, and making every effort to facilitate the appropriate and successful use of their products. Horton explains that education is one of his key goals, and the auditorium and surgical theater are evidence of his commitment to that mission.

It would be understandable if such a tight ship were ruled with an iron fist, but that isn't Horton’s style. The staff grin from ear-to-ear when they see him in the hallway, and he greets them by name and with a friendly pat on the back. Rather than the reverential awe paid a dictator, they approach him with a collegial respect reminiscent of the way teammates approach their star quarterback. He has repaid their hard work and loyalty with the new building, too. It features an employee lounge that would put most day spas to shame.

In an era when many companies are relocating to more traditional hotbeds of biotech activity, NuTech refuses to follow suit. They are Birmingham, through and through, and they aren’t going anywhere.

 

All of this has the potential to place Birmingham squarely on the biotech and orthopedic industry map, and if Ken Horton has his way, it will happen soon. NuTech, the scrappy little biotech company from right here in Birmingham, is about to expand their repertoire and break into the spinal hardware business in a big way. Challenging industry heavyweights like DuPuy, Stryker, and Medtronic might be daunting to many, but Horton is confident that his team can provide superior products with better service.

He certainly has the history to back up that claim. And if the spinal hardware world is smart, they might want to burn some midnight oil to learn about Nutech. This Birmingham company is coming at them with both barrels blazing.