DFINE Seeks Meaning Outside Of Spine

Perhaps DFINE Inc. should consider renaming itself, ReDFINE. The privately held company, a supplier of a system that incorporates radiofrequency energy and articulating osteotomes used in treating vertebral compression fractures in the spine, is working to shed a label that once would have almost guaranteed it a meeting with any medical device investor on Sand Hill Road – spine company. Instead, DFINE is trying to apply a far broader tag to its business. The company is tagging itself as an “interventionalist company,” one capable of providing the tools necessary to interventional radiologists, interventional neuroradiologists and interventional oncologists. This focus ultimately could take DFINE beyond the spine into treatments of other diseases of the bone, particularly cancer.

The shift in DFINE’s focus speaks to two undeniable truths. First, the spinal market doesn’t carry the cachet it once...