Reinhold Schmieding has been flying under the radar in Florida for years, quietly building his medical device empire in Naples. Schmieding designed an early surgical tool for arthroscopic surgery back when the field was just starting out in the 1970s. Today, his $1.1 billion (revenue) Arthrex is a leading provider of arthroscopic tools to orthopedic surgeons, and Schmieding, 58, who owns 100% of the company, is worth an estimated $2.3 billion, based on Forbes’ valuation of the firm.
“They are number 1 or number 2 in sports medicine, in terms of size. For a relatively small private company, they have become one of the big dogs in the shoulder reconstruction space,” says analyst Matt Miksic of Piper Jaffray. Plus Arthrex is still growing at a rapid pace of 20% a year.
For Schmieding, the decision to go into business was actually a rebellion of sorts. Born in Michigan to German immigrants, Schmieding’s family had other plans in mind for his future. “All of the members of my extended family were physicians in Germany, and this was the non-negotiable destiny of the Schmieding family,” he reportedly wrote in his book, Helping Surgeons Treat Their Patients Better, A History of Arthrex’s Contribution to Arthroscopic Surgery. But a career fair he attended as an undergrad at Michigan State University set him on a different path, introducing him to a company that engineered joint replacements.
After graduation, Schmieding worked for Richard’s Medical, a U.S. firm that manufactured orthopedic surgical implants and instruments. The company sent him to Germany, where Schmieding’s language skills could be used. There, Schmieding worked in operating rooms with surgeons, watching them do arthroscopic surgery, which at the time was for only a diagnostic procedure. The surgeons would perform the non-invasive diagnostic, then cut their patients open with a long incision for the actual surgery, leaving a big scar. Wouldn’t it be so much better, the doctors would say, if they could use arthroscopic techniques for the actual surgeries?
So Schmieding bought a $20 drafting table and started sketching instruments from his home in Munich. He and his fiancée, Erika, eventually moved to Westport, CT, where Schmieding enrolled in MBA courses and continued to build his company, sketching instruments by day and studying at night. In 1991, he and Erika moved their family, and business, to Naples, Florida. Today, Arthrex claims it has developed more than 6,000 products and surgical procedures for arthroscopic and minimally invasive orthopaedic surgery. Among those it currently sells: collagen-coated polyethylene sutures used to reattach busted Achilles tendons, and specialized knives used to shave off human bone. More than 94% of Arthrex’s products are manufactured in the United States, and exported to more than 100 countries around the world. It employs more than 1,400 people in Florida and 3,000 worldwide.
While the company did confirm his 100% ownership stake in Arthrex, Schmieding himself could not be reached for comment in time for this story. He has granted the occasional interview to a few local Florida publications over the years. Other than that, this medical device billionaire deliberately stays out of the spotlight.
