The CONMED Corporation is a publicly traded American manufacturer of

medical equipment A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

, primarily

orthopedic Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternative spelling orthopaedics) is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal ...

endoscopy An endoscopy is a procedure used in medicine to look inside the body. The endoscopy procedure uses an endoscope to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike many other medical imaging techniques, endoscopes are insert ...

, and

general A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

surgical tools. In 2021, orthopedics made up $550 million of its revenue. It is part of the

S&P 600 The S&P SmallCap 600 Index (S&P 600) is a stock market index established by S&P Global Ratings. It covers roughly the small-cap range of American stocks, using a capitalization-weighted index. To be included in the index, a stock must have a to ...

. It has manufacturing facilities in the United States and Mexico, and sales and distribution offices internationally. Products made by CONMED include the

Hyfrecator A hyfrecator is a low-powered medical apparatus used in electrosurgery on conscious patients, usually in an office setting. It is used to destroy tissue directly, and to stop bleeding during minor surgery. It works by emitting low-power high-freq ...

electrosurgical generator and

insufflation In religious and magical practice, insufflation and exsufflation are ritual acts of blowing, breathing, hissing, or puffing that signify variously expulsion or renunciation of evil or of the devil (the Evil One), or infilling or blessing with go ...

systems.

History

In 1970, Eugene Corasanti (1930–2015) purchased a small medical supplied distributor in

Utica, New York Utica () is the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adiro ...

. He originally named the company Concor Enterprises, but later renamed it to Consolidated Medical Equipment, Inc. Its first product was a disposable

ECG Electrocardiography is the process of producing an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), a recording of the heart's electrical activity through repeated cardiac cycles. It is an electrogram of the heart which is a graph of voltage versus time of ...

electrode. Corasanti served as CEO until 2006 and chairman of the board until 2014. By the time he retired, CONMED had grown to around $700 million of sales. In May 2003 CONMED was cited by the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

for violations at its Colorado plant. Later in 2003, it filed suit against

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technologies corporation headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its common stock is a c ...

, alleging that Johnson & Johnson was illegally coercing hospitals into purchasing their surgical instruments. A financial analyst for Zacks in 2006 criticized CONMED for taking on the financial strain of this suit, combined with poor growth and debt from recent acquisitions. Eugene's son Joseph J. Corasanti replaced him as CEO in late 2006, which was criticized by some as

nepotism Nepotism is the act of granting an In-group favoritism, advantage, privilege, or position to Kinship, relatives in an occupation or field. These fields can include business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion or health care. In ...

. At the time, the board had consisted entirely of Utica-area residents. Joseph stepped down in 2014. In July 2022, CONMED moved its headquarters from Utica to

Largo, Florida Largo is the third largest city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, as well as the fourth largest in the Tampa Bay area. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 82,485, up from 77,648 in 2010 United States Census, 2010. Larg ...

. Its plant in Utica remains open.

Acquisitions

*1989: Aspen Labs from

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, doing business as Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consist ...

*1995: New Dimensions in Medicine Inc. and the Birtcher Corporation, manufacturer of the

*1997: Linvatec Corp, from

*2002: ValMed and NorTrex Medical *2003: Core Dynamics and Bionx Implants *2004: Endoscopic unit of C R Bard Inc *2012: Viking Systems *2016: SurgiQuest *2017: ExoShape ACL product line from MedShape *2019: Buffalo Filter *2022: In2Bones and Biorez

References

External links

* * Health care companies based in Florida {{US-company-stub