Zimmer Knee's Feminine Twist

Sparking a Debate

Already, Zimmer has managed to spark a debate.

First -- a week before Gender Solutions' scheduled debut -- a Zimmer competitor suddenly declared that it had invented the first female-oriented knee. Stryker (SYK Quote) pointed to its Triathlon knee system, implanted in men and women alike, as proof.

Zimmer took the move as a compliment. After all, the company felt, Stryker had started promoting female knees even if it lacked a specially tailored one like Zimmer's own.

DePuy, which runs the orthopedics division of Johnson & Johnson , claims that the company offers a superior female knee as well. The company highlights its rotating-platform technology -- behind the only mobile-bearing knees in the U.S. market -- as "a true innovation in 'knees for women.'"

Even Biomet , whose recently departed CEO always shunned the marketing game, now claims to sell an ideal female knee. The company simply points to its flagship Vanguard system as the choice implant for both sexes.

"A lot of the things being touted about the female knee are things we introduced in 2004 with Vanguard," Bill Kolter, president of Biomet Orthopedics, told TheStreet.com last week. "I can't say that Zimmer is making bad changes because they are mimicking changes we made a couple of years ago. They're just a little later to the game."

Looking in the Mirror

Clearly, Zimmer sees itself as the trendsetter here instead.

Sheryl Conley, chief marketing officer for the company, admits that some competing systems -- such as Triathlon and Vanguard -- share advances with Gender Solutions. However, she says, they lack a major gender-related improvement.

Notably, she says, those systems failed to adjust the thickness of the implant front that causes women so much pain. Zimmer alone has done so, she adds.

Zimmer spent five years conducting research before the company rolled out its own gender-specific knee. As a result, the company plans to arm itself with reams of scientific evidence as it heads out to sell its product.

"There are 1,000-and-some pages of science," Elliott boasted at a recent investor conference. "There's just nothing else in there. ... It's going to be fun going out and selling against our competitors who assume this is Zimmer marketing."

In the meantime, Zimmer has started ribbing the competition already.

"Zimmer measures potential new product success by the level and intensity of insults from competitors," Elliott said during the company's latest quarterly conference call. "Gender Solutions is right up there with highly cross-linked (polyethylene) in 1998, high-flexion knees in 2000, MIS [minimally invasive surgery] hips in 2001 and MIS knees in 2004."