Biomet

Biomet, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Health Care
Founded	Warsaw, IN, USA (1977)
Headquarters	Warsaw, IN, USA
Key people	Jeff Binder, CEO
Products	Oxford Partial Knee, LactoSorb
Owner	Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, TPG Capital
Number of employees	9,200 (2007)
Website	www.biomet.com

Biomet, Inc. was a medical device manufacturer located in the Warsaw, Indiana business cluster. The company specialized in reconstructive products for orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, craniomaxillofacial surgery and operating room supplies. In 2015, Biomet became part of the new company Zimmer Biomet.

Biomet was established in 1977 and delivered its first hip replacement in 1978. The four founders of Biomet were: Dane A. Miller, Ray Harroff, Niles Noblitt, and Jerry Ferguson. In a September 2007 club deal, the company was acquired by a consortium of private equity firms consisting of The Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts L.P. and TPG Capital, after which Biomet ceased trading on NASDAQ.

In April 2014, it was announced that Zimmer Holdings had succeeded in a bid to acquire Biomet for a fee of $13.4 billion. However, in October 2014, EU antitrust regulators opened an investigation into Zimmer’s bid on the grounds that the deal may lead to substantial decreases in competition in certain markets. The verdict of the investigation into the deal that would make Zimmer the world's second-largest seller of orthopaedic products behind Johnson & Johnson allowed the merger to take place in June 2015.

Biomet manufactured reconstructive products for orthopedic surgery, such as hips, knees and shoulders, fixation devices, orthopedic support devices. It also made spinal implants, dental implants, and general operating instruments. Its subsidiary, Biomet Microfixation, manufactured mainly craniomaxillofacial and neurosurgical products. These included LactoSorb, a fixation system made of completely resorbable material for guided bone regeneration, titanium plates and screws for craniomaxillofacial fixation, instruments for craniomaxillofacial and orthopedic procedures and hard tissue replacements made out of biocompatible polymers, as used in cranial defects. Biomet began using polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) beads, which are fused together with polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate (PHEMA) for cranial plates, in 1993. The other material is polyetherketoneketone (PEKK), formed either by laser sintering or by 3D printing.