Otto Bock HealthCare, Duderstadt, Germany, has acquired BionX Medical Technologies, Bedford, Massachusetts, which produces the emPOWER Ankle. The purchase price was not disclosed.
The active-drive prosthetic ankle was developed by Hugh Herr, PhD, who founded BionX and also directs the Center for Extreme Bionics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Ottobock has been the exclusive distributor of the emPOWER Ankle in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom since last year, and will now take over global marketing.
“Innovations are our key growth driver. Combining the know-how of Ottobock and BionX is a crucial step towards reaching goals, such as the intuitive prosthetic leg, more quickly,” said Hans Georg Näder, president and CEO of Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH. “We are also promoting constructive networking with innovative minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and are already working on the joint further development of existing ideas with the BionX team.”
