OCO Biomedical Inc.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Interviewees:
David D’Alise DDS, Chairman and Founder
John W. Holt Jr., President, CEO
Larry Vetter, COO, Director of Sales

Question NO. 1
Inside Dentistry (ID): The dental industry and the oral healthcare industry have been changing rapidly within the past 5 to 10 years. What do you see as the most significant of these changes?

OCO: OCO Biomedical was founded in 1973 and has been continually focused on developing and manufacturing unique dental implant and attachment systems that meet the demanding needs of the dental industry. The most significant advance in the industry is the ability for a dentist to provide a patient with the option of using, in many cases, an immediate-load dental implant vs more traditional methods of crown-and-bridge tooth replacement. This has motivated the dental implant industry to develop products more user-friendly to the general dentist who can now perform the entire procedure but is also acceptable to the specialty-team approach concept. The dental manufacturing industry has had a big influence on the evolution of today’s dental practice by developing highly sophisticated equipment and materials to provide more sophisticated and esthetic dental treatment than ever before. The end effect of almost all dental treatment is not only the eradication of oral diseases but an enhanced cosmetic result because of the way dentistry is being practiced today and the equipment and materials that the practitioner has to work with.

Question NO. 2
ID: In what ways—both internally and in dealing with the broader oral healthcare marketplace—has your company responded to these changes?

OCO: OCO Biomedical has responded to today’s changes by continually developing new products to meet the increased demands of dentists and patients. Our policy from our founding days has been to provide the dental implant community with a full line of unique products that range from attachment systems, bone grafting tools, implant accessories, and new designs in the dental implants themselves to make them more user-friendly for the dentist and more acceptable as a treatment alternative for the patient. An example is the development of our current 1- and 2-piece lines of immediate-load dental implants. We started from the beginning with a totally new, reengineered implant system that could be placed and loaded the same day. The benefit is readily apparent—the immediate establishment of the emergence profile for a more esthetic result, eliminating loss of vital hard and soft tissues and resulting in a more esthetic and acceptable restoration by the patient. The dentist spends less time in accomplishing total treatment and can maintain a reduced inventory of the parts, pieces, and ancillary devices involved in the placement and restoration of the dental implant. And the patient has the immediate visible benefit for the cost involved in placing the implant and the elimination of several additional appointments necessary to reach that stage. These factors should result in much lower cost to the dental practice and better value for the patient.

Question NO. 3
ID: What product categories do you feel are the most in need of innovation based on what is currently available?

OCO: OCO Biomedical is committed to the continual development of more user-friendly, cost-effective dental implant systems that will provide the appreciable benefits of implants and more comfortable and user-friendly attachment systems to a greater portion of the population.

Question NO. 4
ID: What do you see as the best approach to the research, testing, and ultimate delivery to the market of such needed advancements?

OCO: Continued input from the practicing dental community accompanied by better educating those in practice about the immediate benefits of dental implants. This would increase the demand and use of better products and equipment which should, in turn, bring down the overall cost of these innovations and make them available to more patients.

OCO’s headquarters is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

OCO Biomedical’s leadership (from left): David D’Alise, DDS, Chairman and Founder of OCO Biomedical; Larry Vetter, COO, Director of Sales; and John W. Holt Jr., President, CEO.