By Bradley J. Fikes– August 19, 2016
Spine surgery company NuVasive faced a critical transition in the spring of 2015, when Alex Lukianov, its charismatic chief executive and founder, resigned over a violation of corporate reimbursement and personnel policies.
Lukianov had propelled a wave of innovation into spine surgery, a notoriously difficult field historically plagued with poor results. With instruments and training from the San Diego company, doctors learned to apply minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Instead of going at the spine through the back, severing muscles and ligaments, surgeons approach the spine from the side. Those helped by NuVasive surgery, such as retired basketball great Bill Walton, became fervent advocates for the company.
NuVasive’s board chose another accomplished medical device executive with an even more impressive record of building up medical businesses, Gregory T. Lucier. The company is expanding and investors have voted confidence with their purchases.
Lucier came to prominence for increasing the size of GE Medical Systems Information Technologies through acquisitions and organic growth. After GE, Lucier took over a growing Carlsbad company called Invitrogen and helped merge it with Applied Biosystems to create biomedical products giant Life Technologies.
In early 2013, Life Technologies was sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific for $13.6 billion, or $15 billion if debt is excluded. Then and now, that’s the highest price ever paid for a San Diego area life science company.
In December 2013, Lucier joined the NuVasive board.
“He’s revitalized the sales force … he’s done a lot of things right,” said analyst Joshua Jennings, who covers NuVasive for Cowen and Co. “(The company has) made significant strides in a number of different areas to help the sales force do their jobs, including getting these products to the appropriate sales rep in a timely fashion.”
