A US$ 250 million Play for Spinal Stimulation Patents
Globus Medical announced its US$ 250 million acquisition of Nevro on February 6, 2025, gaining control of their large spinal cord stimulation (SCS) patent portfolio.
This acquisition expands Globus' neuromodulation patent portfolio and strengthens its position in the US$13.3 billion spinal device market. A market that is forecast to grow at around 5.4% CAGR, and reach US$ 21.4 billion by 2032 1. Globus Medical key competitors in this space include Medtronic, Stryker Corporation, and Zimmer Biomet.
In terms of financial performance:
- Globus Medical announced preliminary 2024 net sales of US$2.52 billion, an increase of 60.6% over prior year
- Nevro announced preliminary 2024 worldwide revenue of US$408 million to US$409 million
Company Profiles:
Globus Medical, Inc., based in Audubon, Pennsylvania, is a leading global musculoskeletal company dedicated to solving unmet clinical needs and changing lives. We innovate with inspired urgency, provide world-class education and clinical support, and advance care throughout spine, orthopedic trauma, joint reconstruction, biomaterials and enabling technologies.
Source: www.globusmedical.com.
Nevro Corp., headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a global medical device company focused on delivering comprehensive, life-changing solutions that continue to set the standard for enduring patient outcomes in the treatment of chronic pain. Nevro’s comprehensive HFX™ spinal cord stimulation (SCS) platform includes the Senza® SCS system and support services for the treatment of chronic pain of the trunk and limb and painful diabetic neuropathy. Nevro also provides minimally invasive treatment options for patients suffering from chronic sacroiliac joint pain.
Source: www.nevro.com.
Acquisition signals Globus Medical returns to Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS)
Examination of Globus Medical's patent portfolio of more than 5,790 published application and granted patents across 961 patent families reveals only a few patents related to SCS innovations. These have a title of "Implantable pulse generator that generates spinal cord stimulation signals for a human body."
While reviewing these patents, I noticed some listed Cirtec Medical as an assignee. This raised my interest, and prompted me to explore a little more.
Further investigation on the EPO register seems to suggest these patents were reassigned to Cirtec Medical around 2018. No reasons found why this occurred.
A review of Globus Medical’s website reveals no current SCS product offerings, this is in contrast to Cirtec Medical who clearly have SCS products on their website.
Given the absence of SCS currently offered by Globus Medical I would assume they sold all rights to this technology to Cirtec Medical.
Globus's acquisition of Nevro now signals a strategic re-entry into the SCS market, reinforcing pain management as a complementary offering in Globus Medical’s product line-up.
Globus Medical’s Strategic Vision
Dan Scavilla, President and CEO of Globus Medical, emphasised the strategic importance of this acquisition:
“This transaction furthers our mission to become the preeminent musculoskeletal technology company in the world by enabling us to expand into new markets for future growth, while gaining access to world-class, differentiated technologies that can provide significant benefit in neuromodulation, enabling technologies, and future implant solutions.
We believe our size and operational capabilities will accelerate market penetration of Nevro’s technology and bring much needed and clinically superior relief to patients suffering from chronic pain”
Acquiring 524 applications and 280 granted SCS patents
Let's take a look at Nevro's IP to see what Globus Medical is getting for their
US$ 250 million acquisition.
Since 2009 Nevro have published more than 524 applications across 89 patent families. In total they have received 280 issued patents.
We can see that the number of patent applications has steadily declined year-on-year. In contrast we see the number of granted patents being granted annually has been fairly constant over the same period, with a few a few bumper years.
Gaining access to three major markets - US,AU and EP
The majority of the application patents were US accounting for about 42% of the total. Australia and Europe were 19% and 16% respectively, accounting for about 35%. So collectively US, AU and EP account for 78% of all application patents filed by Nevro. Suggesting these are their main markets for commercialising the products. I say this for the simple reason companies only file patents in countries where they see significant revenue opportunity. There are only six countries where Nevro have been granted patents.
The number of patents filed in Australia is surprising. More than I would have assumed prior to conducting the analysis. Australia must be, or has been, an attractive market for the company's products.
Patent families
Nevro patent portfolio has 89 patent families with one or more member. The largest patent family has 154 members, and a priority date in 2009. The most frequent title found across this patent family is "selective high frequency spinal cord modulation for inhibiting pain with reduced side effects, and associated systems and methods", on 107 publications.