Emerging Company Profile: The UK's Antikor Biopharma is advancing antibody fragment-drug conjugates (FDCs) closer to the clinic with plans for its first human study in 2019 or 2020.

The global market for spine implants and products will surpass $6 billion this year. While technological innovations continue to abound and industry proponents forecast sustained double-digit growth, the spine market is entering an unsettling phase of bureaucratic regulation and oversight from regulators and payors who appear intent on putting the breaks on this sector.

While products for fusing the spine remain the backbone of the booming market for spinal implants and instruments, there's a new focus on motion preservation. These technologies--for lumbar and cervical disc replacement, nucleus replacement, posterior stabilization,and pedicle screw-based systems--promise a host of new procedures to treat patients with symptomatic back pain who are earlier in the degenerative process.

Medtronic recently declared that InFUSE, the company's blockbuster spine bone graft product that provides the growth factor rhBMP-2 as part of a lumbar fusion cage, was well on its way to becoming standard of care in spine surgery. The company's success has fueled interest in a plethora of potential entrants into the biologic bone formation market.